B ased on a true story, Bill Guttentag's rousing drama attests to the resilience of women who dare to dream despite draconian social strictures. The film follows Roya Mahboob (Nikohl Boosheri), a trailblazing coach and businesswoman in Stem (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) who assembles a robotics team of Afghan girls for international competitions. They face the same dangers too; in a country where women are not encouraged or even allowed to pursue higher levels of education, their quest for medals sees opposition from their own families as well as public scorn from conservatives. Rule Breakers is at its most thrilling during the competition sequences, which splice together real-life documentary footage of the events with fictional re-enactments. These spaces are portrayed as a haven that encourages camaraderie rather than competitiveness, and in a world divided by military conflicts and war, they offer a utopiian vision of international collaboration and solidarity.

This work explores a novel integration of blockchain methodologies with Wide Area Visual Navigation (WAVN) to address challenges in visual navigation for a heterogeneous team of mobile robots deployed for unstructured applications in agriculture, forestry, etc. Focusing on overcoming challenges such as GPS independence, environmental changes, and computational limitations, the study introduces the Proof of Stake (PoS) mechanism, commonly used in blockchain systems, into the WAVN framework \cite{Lyons_2022}. This integration aims to enhance the cooperative navigation capabilities of robotic teams by prioritizing robot contributions based on their navigation reliability. The methodology involves a stake weight function, consensus score with PoS, and a navigability function, addressing the computational complexities of robotic cooperation and data validation. This innovative approach promises to optimize robotic teamwork by leveraging blockchain principles, offering insights into the scalability, efficiency, and overall system performance. The project anticipates significant advancements in autonomous navigation and the broader application of blockchain technology beyond its traditional financial context.

The courageous story of Afghanistan's first all-girls robotics team is coming to a theater near you. Rule Breakers is based on the true story of The Afghan Girls Robotics Team, who grabbed the world's attention when they were denied member visas by the United States in 2017 while attempting to compete at the First Global Challenge international robotics competition. Fifty three members of Congress signed a petition and President Donald Trump intervened to give the girls travel documents on special humanitarian grounds allowing them to enter the US and compete in the robotics games, according to a New York Times profile. The story of the team's struggle to compete in the robotics competition goes much deeper than their attempts to enter the US. First Global founder Dean Kamen, who is best known for designing the Segway, put together his competitive robotics league as a way to spark interest in science and technology among high schoolers.

Using a deformable sheet to handle objects is convenient and found in many practical applications. For object manipulation through a deformable sheet that is held by multiple mobile robots, it is a challenging task to model the object-sheet interactions. We present a computational model and algorithm to capture the object position on the deformable sheet with changing robotic team formations. A virtual variable cables model (VVCM) is proposed to simplify the modeling of the robot-sheet-object system. With the VVCM, we further present a motion planner for the robotic team to transport the object in a three-dimensional (3D) cluttered environment. Simulation and experimental results with different robot team sizes show the effectiveness and versatility of the proposed VVCM. We also compare and demonstrate the planning results to avoid the obstacle in 3D space with the other benchmark planner.

It's Ada Lovelace Day and once again we're delighted to introduce you to "50 women in robotics you need to know about"! From the Afghanistan Girls Robotics Team to K.G.Engelhardt who in 1989 founded, and was the first Director of, the Center for Human Service Robotics at Carnegie Mellon, these women showcase a wide range of roles in robotics. We hope these short bios will provide a world of inspiration, in our ninth Women in Robotics list! They are researchers, industry leaders, and artists. Some women are at the start of their careers, while others have literally written the book, the program or the standards.

The Afghan Girls Robotics Team works on their robot at a 2017 competition in Washington. The Afghan Girls Robotics Team works on their robot at a 2017 competition in Washington. The Afghan Girls Robotics Team made headlines in 2017 when they came to Washington for an international competition just a few blocks from the White House. Most members of the team were born after the Taliban were ousted from power in 2001, symbolizing a new Afghanistan where girls were free to go to school and women were getting at least some opportunities that had been long denied. But with the Taliban back, the future of these girls -- some of them now young women -- has turned precarious.

Last month, OpenAI cofounder Wojciech Zaremba said the company has disbanded its robotics team in a Weights & Biases podcast. "I was actually working for several years on robotics. Recently, we changed the focus at OpenAI. I disbanded the robotics team. There are actually plenty of domains that are very rich with data. Ultimately that was holding us back, in the case of robotics," said Zaremba.

Sometimes, vocations and avocations need a champion, and students in Massachusetts looking to further their knowledge of science, technology and robotics have one in state Rep. Danillo Sena. A House member representing the 37th Middlesex District, Sena filed a bill on Feb. 4 titled "An Act establishing an elementary and secondary school robotics grant program," meant to create a grant program that provides public and charter schools the necessary funding to increase robotics and STEM participation during and after school. STEM stands for science, technology, engineering and mathematics, a branch of education designed to help students to become better problem-solvers. "Money should not be a barrier between students and access to fun and engaging STEM education programs that foster creativity and have lasting positive effects on student achievement like these robotics teams," the Acton Democrat stated in a release. The bill was created in collaboration with Olivia Oestreicher, a member of Team 4905 Andromeda One Robotics at Ayer Shirley Regional High School and a Rep. Sena intern.

For this first time in his life, Pete Peeks was able to use both hands to hang Christmas lights outside his house this year -- thanks to the help of a high school robotics team. Peeks, 38, was born without the full use of his right hand, and though many may take gripping a nail, hammering it in and stringing holiday lights for granted, Peeks said it was beyond his wildest dreams. Early this month, he became one of the latest clients of the Sequoyah High School Robotics Team in Canton, Georgia. The team has designs and 3D- printed custom prosthesis to send for free to people around the world who need them. And as Americans gather for the winter holidays, the students will be at home continuing their work.

Kabul – On most mornings, Somaya Farooqi and four other teenage girls pile into her dad's car and head to a mechanic's workshop. They use back roads to skirt police checkpoints set up to enforce a lockdown in their city of Herat, one of Afghanistan's hot spots of the coronavirus pandemic. The members of Afghanistan's prize-winning girls' robotics team say they're on a life-saving mission -- to build a ventilator from used car parts and help their war-stricken country battle the virus. "If we even save one life with our device, we will be proud," said Farooqi, 17. Their pursuit of a low-cost breathing machine is particularly remarkable in conservative Afghanistan.