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Here's the life-changing robot designed for Joanne O'Riordan in action

The prototype was unveiled at Trinity College Dublin earlier this afternoon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3lfNWocOug
(Video Credit: TheJournal.ie)

IT BLINKS, IT walks, and although it doesn’t talk just yet, it’s is the first step towards a robot that could change the lives of thousands of people.

Engineers at Trinity College Dublin revealed Robbie earlier this afternoon, a prototype robot designed to help Joanne O’Riordan.

The 18-year-old was born with a rare condition known as Total Amelia which means she has no limbs.

Display emotions

After three months and with €50,000 in funding, the team managed to construct this version that can easily pick up dropped items and display emotions.

The engineers stressed that this is a working prototype and not the finished product, although it doesn’t differ entirely from their original designs.

“It had to be anthropomorphic,” Design Engineer George Walsh said, “so that people could easily accept it”.

“The original design and goal hasn’t changed, but some of the concepts of how to carry out the necessary functions required rethinking due to funding and time constraints”.

He added that while future designs will aim to be lighter and more power efficient, the basic functionality they aimed for has been achieved.

Conor McGinn, Chief Engineer, explains the build of the robot below:

(Video Credit: TheJournal.ie)

Dr Hamadan I. Touré, Secretary General of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), said it was amazing to see the robot in motion and that everyone was greatly inspired by Joanne’s speech at the United Nations.

(Video Credit: TheJournal.ie)

Read more: Trinity College engineers have built Joanne O’Riordan a robot >

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12 Comments
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    Mute Giovanni Giusti
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    Oct 16th 2013, 6:52 AM

    Wonderful news

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    Mute Peter Forde
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    Oct 16th 2013, 8:33 PM

    Why wud people give u a thumb down for ur comment ? Strange folk

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    Mute Andrew Matheson
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    Oct 16th 2013, 7:04 AM

    Hopefully we’ll see them built into the standard battery of blood tests in an effort to make early diagnoses and improve mortality rates.

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    Mute significantrisk
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    Oct 16th 2013, 8:05 AM

    Not that simple – there’s no point identifying a cancer early through screening unless a) you can do something about it and b) you can reliably identify which people would suffer more harm from the cancer than from the treatment.

    Screening for disease isn’t a benign activity – it can lead to significant harm to patients.

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    Mute Mary Crimmins
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    Oct 16th 2013, 9:53 AM

    You’ll be fighting a losing battle significantrisk.

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    Mute Aisling Dunne
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    Oct 16th 2013, 7:09 AM

    If cancer is the second leading cause of death worldwide, what’s the first? :/ great news all the same.

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    Mute Danny Hollywood
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    Oct 16th 2013, 7:41 AM

    Heart disease

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    Mute Peter Forde
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    Oct 16th 2013, 8:34 PM

    Aids???

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    Mute Danny Hollywood
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    Oct 17th 2013, 4:20 AM

    Cardiovascular disease’s are the number one killer globally according to WHO . This study relates to 2008 when 17.3 million people died (representing 30% of all global deaths and is estimated to reach 22 million deaths per year by 2030)
    Aids on the other hand has infected 70 million people in total globally , killing 35 million people so far and those numbers are declining because of better medication .This statistic is also from the WHO website .:)

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    Mute Kathleen Clohessy
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    Oct 28th 2014, 3:17 AM

    Heart disease.

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    Mute Catherine Sims
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    Oct 16th 2013, 9:24 AM

    Excellent news. These blood tests are vital diagnostic tools. I saw on tv where a simple test developed in Ireland using just blood is identifying people at risk from cardiac disease. These people apparently have sticky platelets. This test is already in use in Beaumont Hospital . Medical research is always an area I try to donate to. Your money could potentially help millions . That’s some return for your donation.

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    Mute methuselah of rock
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    Oct 16th 2013, 8:03 AM

    Link to the study please!

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    Mute Lesley-Ann Byrne
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    Oct 16th 2013, 8:09 AM

    This is positive news in the wake of all the bad news we are getting lately.

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    Mute Seamus Mc Nulty
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    Oct 16th 2013, 8:23 AM

    How long to fruition?

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    Mute Kathleen Clohessy
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    Oct 28th 2014, 3:16 AM

    Can you please supply the name, location and principle investigators in the U.S. study you cite? There is a great deal of research going on in the areas of cancer epigenetics and some companies have been able to diagnose certain cancers with 75-90 percent accuracy with simple blood tests. (See http://medcitynews.com/2014/10/startups-breast-cancer-patients-pink-ribbon/ for more info.) Further, certain fatty acids have been recognized as markers for certain cancers–such as germ cell tumors and neuroblastoma, for decades (e.g. HVA and VMA) so this may or may not be “news.” At any rate, unsubstantiated reports are neither informative nor helpful; they are rumorsand typically do more harm than good.

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    Mute Michael
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    Oct 16th 2013, 12:14 PM

    Think these is/was a group in NUIG who made something similar, detecting mRNA of faulty genes thus a indicator of cancer, or certain infections!

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