As a student of all things design, it
fascinates me when I encounter a sub-
Ron Rizzo, a western faculty member, poses with some
of his favorite microprocessors. He uses them to make
robots. Photo by Will Kotheimer.
Robotics
helping
people
by Will Kotheimer
ject that is technologically oriented,
well-designed, and focused on help-
ing people as well. When the subject
is as cool as something like robots,
that rare intersection between design,
technology, and humanity, my excite-
ment nearly doubles. Ron Rizzo repre-
sents this rare breed of “know-how”
meets compassion. With knowledge of
robotics, computer science, electrical
engineering, and a passion for helping
people -- he has forged a path-- both
for his students to learn, and to help
the community, too.
Ron is a man whose passion is to make
robots, but really his passions runs
much deeper than that. As a staff en-
gineer at Western, Ron helps students
learn robotics. But then he also makes
robots that are used in many aspects
of civic service from urban research
to search and rescue missions. Per-
haps a more important calling of his is
to use this knowledge to help people
with rheumatoid arthritis and disabili-
ties that keep them from being able to
bend down, something most of us take
for granted. This passion has culminat-
ed in him founding his company
“Ability Robotics”. It seems that in
helping others he truly finds his joy.
So let’s begin . . .
WK: How are you doing today?
RR: Doing just fine.
WK: I just wanted an introduction to
what you do with your students, and
we can take this as a jumping off point
especially with what your vision is with
robots and robotics.
RR: Okay. I’m employed by the University. I’m
an electromechanical engineering technologist.
I received my four year degree from Western,
“. . .sometimes we
was a project engineer at a local firm for five
years then got the opportunity to come to the
deal with things with-
University as a staff engineer primarily in elec-
tronics and computer support but a lot of my
in elements. It’s in
passion is in the field of robotics, automation,
and programming type applications. So for the
a cave, it has to go
department I support all of these projects that
we have going on the electrical side, from ro-
along the border of
botic competitions to printed circuit boards,
to creating visual basic code to anything that
Mexico looking for
pertains on the electrical side. tunnels, the ambient
WK: So how does a robot work? temperature being 110
RR: First you have to get a definition of what its
going to do, because that usually guides how
degrees.”
you are going to design it. A robot can consist
of something that moves around the floor to
something that performs certain tasks for
individuals. A robot can be autonomous, it can
be RC controlled, it can be controlled by using
I

a push button, a joystick. . . there’s so many different applica-

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I enjoyed the most, that in helping others he
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truly found life calling. This story begins an interview about a man who makes robots, but
you are looking for it to
its really much more than that. do.

WK:
So You
let’s mentioned
begin ... software programs, and I am learning
Visual Basic myself. When most people think of software it’s
running
WK: This something on screen,
is Will Kotheimer at the but
EBShere its running
building with Ronsomething
Rizzo. And he’s a staff engineer at Western
out in the real world. How is the interface between that, and is
Kentucky University in the robotics area. How are you doing today?
that something that is easy to explain?
RR: Doing just fine.
RR: On the application side of things, and here in my lab I have
WK: I just wanted an introduction to what you do with your students, and we can take this as a jump-
ing off point especially with what your vision is with robots and robotics.

Photo by Will Kotheimer
robots that run software internally, so you
have to program it. And when you program
it to do a certain task that’s using software
language that’s then loaded to a micropro-
cessor. From there it now controls either
the turning of a wheel, the flashing of a light,
the movement of an arm. So the processor
controls it, but you as a designer program
that processor to do what it needs to do.
That is one application. Another applica-
tion is someone sitting behind a computer
screen and controlling, so we could do that
through radio frequency, we could do that
through infrared lighting, I could do that
through wireless. I have a robot that is actu-
ally wi-fi controlled. So on a computer you
push a joystick, the computer then sends
out a code over the Ethernet, and the robot
detects on it. Voice activated, there’s text
to speech, there’s so many variety of ways
to control a robot.
WK: So the inputs are chosen, and they tell
the robot, okay I want you to move your arm
to these coordinates. . .
RR: You as a programmer tell it. Robots are
only as smart as the person developing it,
because AI hasn’t been developed. Artificial
intelligence is coming around but there’s so
much that needs to be learned in that field
to handle all of the vast variety of variables
that it has to deal with.
So let’s take a situation. . .something that
I’m working with, and that’s individuals
that suffer from rheumatoid arthritis. For
them to be able to negotiate their day to
day activities the variables in a person’s
environment is ever changing, so as a pro-
grammer you either have to deal with here
are variables that I can program around and
from their the robot has to make decisions
to help negotiate the movement of a table,
the individual moved a table from this loca-
tion to that location, now the robot needs
to deal with that, or you know, there’s an
obstacle in its way. So now, how do I negoti-
ate around that, so as a programmer I can
put variables that I know but then give it the
instrumentation to allow it to make some
decisions. Now how much of those decisions
can I make, so its not thinking on its own all
the time, there’s still limits on what those
decisions can be. But it does have the ability
to go hmm. . . there’s something in my way,
maybe I need to turn right.
WK: How can robots help humans and what
kinds of human centered applications are
there? Maybe just mention a few of them
that you are working in specifically.
RR: They are everywhere. If you think about
 it, your car has computers. You look at
cars now that can detect cars behind you,
objects to the side, park a car for you. So
individuals use them everyday. A project
I’m working on now is for the transportation
department. We are using a robot to inspect
a cave. We use them for search and rescue,
for body identification and recovery for
drown victims, for people with disabilities,
Isaac Asimov and probably earlier than that,
but the idea of cybernetics, which came out
of needs created by people who needed
prosthetic limbs and even now they have
robots in factories where if the work is too
dangerous and maybe even just too bor-
ing. In fact I read just checking Wiki that the
name Robot came from the Czech word for
drudge work.

RR: Well Bill Gates said

that here shortly he
expects robots to be in
every house.

WK: You mean like that

cartoon the Jetsons?

RR: And unfortunately

when most people think
of robotics, like a lot of
Imyamrobots
someone when I intro-
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duce
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touch
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viduals, first thing
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ogy, andto their mind
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Ron Rizzo was a ser- it
“Rosie”. “Oh, does
look like Rosie?”
endipitous find forNo,an it’s
not a humanoid
interviewer type
like me. of
With
robot. That has a whole
different set of criterias
This robot was created by Ron to work in a of to try to go upright. But it is a robot that
cave system that runs below a neighborhood. helps people with disabilities. So yes, a lot of
Photo by Will Kotheimer our cartoons and just childhood things kind
of lend that but Bill Gates said that robots
for homeland
knowledge security,
of robotics, for entertainment
computer science, electricity, will
andbe in every
a passion forhouse
helpingvery shortly.
people, Ron runs the
sometimes. Sometimes even the simplest
gamut of “know-how” meets compassion. After all, his projects are above all about helping people,
things
both his you can think
students and theof world
have it’s own merit.
at large. WK: Maybe we should concentrate on that
So robots are used in more places than you disability question. Because I am very inter-
can think of – you don’t think of – well maybe
As a staff engineer at Western, he is both gregarious ested in this
and eager blogstudents,
to help in how various
not andtechnolo-
lacks the
that car
stuffy is making
demeanor a decision
of someone who– “I thought
pursues I
knowledge gies can help
to make people.
himself bigger in other’s eyes, or for
was
its ownin sake.
control.” – Well
This was not
one always.
of the things about Ron that I enjoyed the most, that in helping others he
truly found his life calling. This story begins with an RR: Well the
interview company
about a man whoI gotmakes
to develop
robots,isbut
for
WK:
its I’mmuch
really not sure
more when
thanthis
that.came about, assisted living devices because there are
maybe back in the forties or fifties. But the over seven million people last year who suf-
whole idea of the robot was popularized by fered from simple arthritis. Who are unable
to bend, stoop, and pick up items, so in my
mind how do they deal with the day to day
activities. We take for granted I can bend
over and pick up that towel. In most situ-
ations people on disability or who have a
disability are either let go from their current
position because they can no longer perform
that task which then puts them on some sort
of social security, medicare, or Medicaid, so
they were not quite ready for their retire-
ment is what I’ve discovered. So they are
living in smaller environments and are unable
to redesign their house. So if I am not able to
stoop down to pick up a can of food, how do I
deal with that? So a lot of times what they’ll
do is that they will move it up to the top of
the counter. They try to use the house the
best they can, but that’s not the best or the
safest environment for them, so that’s what
I focused on how to assist even the simple
task on getting a glass of water.
Ron developed this robot and gave it to his wife to help with the yard work. Photo by
Will Kotheimer
WK: What considerations to you take into
account when designing a robot. For in-
stance, you might tell it to go this far, but
not farther?
RR: Some things are learned. And then some
of it you just kind of learn talking to the end
user –“What do you need?” and then you de-
sign around that you know, because maybe
its something as simple as grabbing a bottled
water, that we take for granted because its
something I can do everyday. I can walk to a
fridge and grab a bottle of water. But some
people can’t do that so, if that is the need
then that is what you start thinking about.
Okay how does this robot get from A to B, B
to C, C to D? How do you open a fridge?
WK: A lot of steps that you just take for
granted.
RR: Yes exactly! Because when I am thinking
about those applications. I even talk to stu-
dents about that because our freshman have
to build an autonomous robot. Or we deal
with fourth, fifth, and sixth graders doing
robotic competitions and activities. And a
lot of times I will say, okay boom, you are the
robot, walk from here to here – now what did
you do to go from here to here? So that is
robotics in a sense. In your mind, you do that
already. Now you just have to tell that robot
to do it. So that is the programming side, but
the mechanical side is now how do you physi-
cally design? Well that’s years of using 3-D
packages, Arduinos, learning how to ma-
chine. I’ve built my own C and C devices, I’ve
learned what I needed to fabricate, because
if I can think it, I can see it, I just can physi-
cally make it right now . So then you start to
do the physical, the hardware side of it.
WK: How do you say that, Arduino?
RR: AR-duino? I’ve used parallaxes, arduinos,
HC-12s, HC-11s, Atmel ATtiny, ATmega,
sanguino, what’s another arduino family?
Again, if you are passionate about it, you
want to explore them all.
WK: Ron, how did you get into this field?
RR: What kind of started it. Several things.
One of them is just being an electrical engi-
neer. You always have the passion to want to
continue educating. I started on one micro-
processor and then got inspired by another
and another and another, to components, to
a variety of different motors, motor-control-
lers. When I was a very young engineer, right
out of college I was working with an older
gentleman, who was about to make a move,
his division was being transferred to Puerto
Rico, and I got the opportunity to work with
him and meet the guy. I said, you are about
to be phased out, but you are always a happy
guy, how do you do it? He said, just because
I am not here doesn’t mean I’m still not go-
ing to enjoy being an engineer. What you
have to do, you got to love what you are
doing. And I kind of took that and grew upon
that, because if I enjoy playing with micro-
processors, or building robotic devices or
whatever it is. I also do woodworking. I love
building things. You know. Its not a job, its
your passion. It could be photography. So
you become good because you enjoy doing
that and you want to do that. So that kind
of let me down the path of electronics and
robotics. Now the assisted living devices I
was inspired by just talking to people and
understanding these people are suffering
from these disabilities but yet there’s noth-
ing there to assist them. If I had a broken hip
I could get a wheelchair, or use crutches, if
I have a broken leg, but if you are suffering
from arthritis or loss of limbs, there’s noth-
ing there for you. So that is a passion, that
these are real people, that I have spoken
with. One gentleman in Houston Texas that I
talk to – he has to stop me half-way through
some of our phone conversations. He says,
Ron it just hurts me too bad, I cannot con-
tinue this. And that’s real world. How can
you live like that? So that has inspired a pas-
sion, you know, someone’s got to help these
people. There’s got to be help for this.
So that’s what’s taken me down the path of
assisted living devices and taken my knowl-
edge of ten years in being passionate about
electrical engineering and playing with the
microprocessor and the wireless modules
and to incorporate that into a robotic device
to hopefully help somebody that is suffering.