BEYOND THE WEB - MANIPULATING THE REAL-WORLD

This paper describes a WWW site that allows users to ''leave the Web'' and interact with the real world. An interdisciplinary team of anthropologists, computer scientists and electrical engineers collaborated on the project, desigining a system which consists of a robot arm fitted with a CCD camera and a pneumatic system. By clicking on an ISMAP control panel image, the operator of the robot directs the camera to move vertically or horizontally in order to obtain a desired position and image. The robot is located over a dry-earth surface allowing users to direct short bursts of compressed air onto the surface using the pneumatic system. Thus robot operators can ''excavate'' regions within the environment by positioning the arm, delivering a burst of air, and viewing the image of the newly cleared region. This paper describes the system in detail, addressing critical issues such as robot interface, security measures, user authentication, and interface design. We see this project as a feasibility study for a broad range of WWW applications.