Date: Sat, 6 Oct 2001 11:38:51 -0500
From: "Lois McMaster Bujold"
To: Bujold Chat Group" <lois-bujold@herald.co.uk>
Subject: Fw: Bujold robot at WTC
Hi all --
Writers get these extraordinary letters from time to time -- Dr. Murphy
gave me permission to share this one.
Some of you may recall "Robot Bujold" from a few years back. I dimly
recall we had a link from the Bujold Nexus for a while, though I can't seem
to find it at the moment. To sum up, Dr. Murphy is a roboticist now at the
U. of South Florida, who has been working on robots for search and rescue.
She has named a number of her prototypes after women science fiction
writers, including me and Connie Willis. "Robot Bujold" was an early
marsupial robot design, which rode and was deployed from a larger robot in
order to enter search areas.
More current information on the topic is on the webpage
http://www.csee.usf.edu/robotics/
Ta, Lois.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Robin Murphy (CS)" To: "Lois McMaster Bujold" Sent: Friday, October 05, 2001 9:04 PM Subject: Bujold > Lois: > > I'm the roboticist who named a robot after you... > > I hope all is well, and I thoroughly enjoyed the > Curse of Chalion. Which I finished right before > Sept. 11. > > So... I was up at the WTC with Bujold and five > other robots and 3 grad students as part of the > Center for Robot-Assisted Search and Rescue. We > made the NY Times, Today, and CNN, so you might have > seen us. It turned out that Bujold and her > younger siblings were the most valuable of the > robots. We found at least 5 victims (no live saves) > and, well, remains. Plus we helped the rescue > workers decide what was safe and unsafe to pursue. > A start. Small, but now, finally, funding will > be available for USAR. > > Bujold got packed onto the rubble pile once but > wasn't used. She wound up sacrificing her tracks > and headlights for a robot that went in and > found 4 victims. The younger robots had more > features, so Bujold was always a backup. But a > very proud, solid backup. So we were proud of > her. > > My team was up there by 9/12 and stayed for > 11 days. I was nominally second in command, with > a newly retired LTC as director. A couple of times > I started to say, "consider them as Betans," to > try to help him manage the four teams of robot-geeks, > some of whom had clearly never left the lab before. > I thought of Miles as I got to hastily write up > safety procedures for the less fieldable guys > on about a hour's worth of sleep. And I almost > always thought of Cordelia. > > Anyway, the parallels were endless. And it made > the experience more amusing? tolerable? digestable? > by having watched such believable characters as > the Vorkosigans deal with crisis and adversity. > > Thanks very much for your books, > > Robin > > ************************************************** > + Dr. Robin R. Murphy, Associate Professor + > + Computer Science and Engineering + > + University of South Florida, Tampa FL 33620 + > + http://www.csee.usf.edu/~murphy (813)974-4756 + > **************************************************
© 2001 by Robin Murphy and Lois McMaster Bujold
Added to The Bujold Nexus: November 20th 2001
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