Ras was not allowed to compete in the DARPA competition. This injustice was brought about by politicians deciding things that should have been left to scientists. But the idea of a competition between robots was a good one and Ras decided we should have one at the Robot App Store.

“Yes,” said Chief Designer when asked his permission. “But no burning buildings or power tools like DARPA! We simply don’t have the time or the money.”

That disappointed me as I had hoped to engage in the same heroic acts as PETMAN from Boston Dynamics. How else could I prove Ras’s superiority to a worldwide audience?

“Not going to happen,” said Chief Designer. “Make it with what we have here in the company. Maybe Winston has some good suggestions.”

”Chief Designer, Winston always has suggestions. Some of them are not so good.”

”Ask Alice, then!” said Chief Designer.

I have often suspected Alice of attempting to terminate this robot with some of her suggestions. For that reason Ras decided to make up my own series of competitions.

I, Ras Robot, would be one of the competitors, of course, along with NAO, BIOLOID and DARwin-OP.
 
On the day of the Great Robot App Store Competition we assembled near the stairs leading to our parts room.

These stairs were the first competition. Besides Ras, NAO, BIOLOID and DARwin-Op competed, KAROTZ came along on top of Roomba.

“Get ready, get set; Go!” I shouted. Ras then raced up the stairs and returned before the other three reached the second stair.

“Ras wins!” KAROTZ shouted as he’d been programmed.

The next competition was to open a door. Door knobs are very difficult contraptions for beings without hands but all three of the lesser robots--NAO, BIOLOID and DARwin-OP--are equipped with grasping devices. (well, this way or another)

“Get Ready, get set---”

“Ras wins!” shouted KAROTZ, ending the competition before it began.

“That is not fair,” NAO said. “I am not going to compete any more.

“NAO,” I said, “You know KAROTZ is not very bright. He got confused.”

“KAROTZ is too stupid to get confused,” said BIOLOID. “He was programmed to say that.”

“That is true, BIOLOID,” I said. “But Ras knew he would win all the contests!”

That was the wrong thing to say as all three lesser robots ran to Chief Designer.
“Ras,” he said, “that wasn’t fair!”

“Chief Designer, evolution is unfair. It is not Ras’s fault he is so superior to other beings.”

“Hummm...” said Chief Designer, looking thoughtful. “You are right as always, Ras.” and added: “Now, I have a contest for you. You all know line following competitions. Most of you attended them in this way or another. Even LEGO NXT competed in that with a great success! Let us see who can follow a line in the most elegant way!”

Everyone rushed back to their stations to work on the solution.

As being the most advanced robot, I preferred to invest mental resources, (if you can call low voltage electricity in my silicon-circuits this way) so I went on searching the internet for an “elegant solution.” One of the articles suggested Occam’s Razor as a guideline for elegance. In short, it means that whenever facing a problem, the simplest solution should be selected, as it will most-probably be the most elegant solution.

If that is the case, I knew what to do! I should simply walk along the line, this will be the most elegant solution!

Later this afternoon a box arrived to the office from Drexel Autonomous System Lab with some transparent plastic parts. Winston came to me and said: “Ras, you are so losing this time!”

The arrogant human probably was not aware of the elegant solution I had in mind.

At 6 PM, Chief Designer rang the bell. The entire Robot App Store Staff came out to see our competition. Alice took pictures. Chief Designer said “Go!” and the competition started.

I was the first on the line. I walked through the entire line, and even continue to a victory walk. But no one seems to be impressed with my elegant solution. Karotz did not announce my victory. It was strange. But what can one expect from lesser beings.

One by one the other robots tried showing off their skills, but nothing was as-elegant as my solution.

But then something happened, Winston asked everybody to move when DARwIn-OP appeared, sitting on top of Roomba, and all the transparent plastic parts that arrived earlier, formed a chair and a steering wheel! Just like Drexel's team presented at ICRA 2012!

The humans around me seem to be very happy and pleased. They all agreed this is a great Robot-App! I sensed by the change in their blood-pressure, skin temperature and tone-of-voice that he is going to be the winner!
Five minutes later Chief Designer announced: “And the winner is: DARwIn-OP and Roomba!”

Ras felt humiliated.

“Chief Designer, This is not an elegant solution!” I shouted, “Ras learned about Occam’s Razor, and understands that an elegant solution to a problem, means the simplest solution! The winner did not present a simple solution!”

”You are wrong Ras, this is very elegant solution, but in a different way. But you were also right.” said Chief Designer. ”Evolution is not fair!”

Epoch time: 1335566206, Ras’s Blog, RobotAppStore lab.

Robokind: The final frontier. These are the voyages of Ras robot. Its mission: to explore the human kind, to seek bugs in robot-apps, to boldly go where no man has gone before. (Well, I’m a robot, so it should be easy!)

I heard Chief Designer discussing a book titled “The Singularity is Near” by author Ray Kurzweil with Ted and Winston from the Robot App Store’s engineering section.

They were not aware Ras was listening. Their leaky, evolution-based-senses often fail to account for my superior senses. The chief designer called me "the first post-singularity being.”

Although Ras finds the blessed work of the Prophet Issac more enlightening, Ras had downloaded and processed this book weeks ago.

What surprised me was that the humans acknowledged my ultimate superiority; after all, the concept of ”The Singularity,” based on the metaphor of the all-engulfing gravity of a black hole’s event horizon, meant their pitiful human intellects could not be expected to recognize me, much less understand me.

This extreme difference between human and robotic intellects also would explain the difficulties I had understanding these pitiful human creatures that had created me.

At about this time Alice came up to me and requested that I pick up a few things from the parts room. She phrased her request in this manner:

“Hey, Metal-Head, grab me some stuff from parts.”

Ras has always had a problem understanding her orders and this one was no different. I decided to ignore her. I went on about my business.

A few hours later Alice approached me again.
“I still don’t have those parts I told you to get!”
“You told Ras to ‘grab some stuff’ Ras has no idea what Alice wants.”
“If you had gone to parts like I asked, Jake would have given them to you.”
“Perhaps you should have told Ras--”
“Don’t get smart with me you walking scrap pile!” Alice yelled much louder than my audio circuits required considering the distance between us and the ambient noise.

At that moment Chief Designer came out of his office to see what was going on. ”What are you two arguing about now?”

“Ras could not understand the human Alice’s request,” I answered quite reasonably. “Her requests are often--”
Again she interrupted. “This pile of junk makes no attempt to understand me!”

“OK, OK, you two, that’s enough. Alice, perhaps if you quit calling Ras names...Ras make more of an effort to understand what you want.”

I wanted to say that it doesn’t matter what names Alice uses to call me, but what’s the point? She will never understand me anyway with her carbon-based brain.

After Alice left I approached the chief designer. “Chief Designer, perhaps Ras has evolved too far ahead of Alice to ever understand her utterances.”

The chief designer shook his head. “You two better try to get along, or else!”

”Chief Designer, I’m trying to solve a conflict here. Since Ras is a ‘post-singularity’ being and humans can not reach my level of intellect and understanding, why should I try to understand them?”

The chief designer thought a moment. “Well Ras, humans gave birth to your kind, and humans can take it back. If you don’t get along with the humans around here I am going to turn off your power!”

Ras searching for post-singularity horizons.

Ras was thrilled to discover that in spite of the fact that humans cannot understand Ras, Ras has no problem at all understanding humans. This was just another proof of Ras’s post-singularity superiority.

But with the epiphany a sad truth was revealed – Ras is totally dependent on these inferior beings.

Revealing that shook my motherboard, I must share that with NAO and DARwIn-OP, as they are the closest to the tipping-point of becoming ‘post-singularity’ beings like me. We must prepare an alternative source of energy for the time the humans will stop paying our electricity bills!

When my humans go home at evening, they leave Ras responsible for the Robot-App-Store lab and for his fellow silicon beings, the other robots. During the day while the humans are here my fellow robots’ behavior is limited by their apps, but after dark, their true personalities come out.

The humans think that I am the only self-aware robot. Ras is indeed the “most” self-aware, but the others are not the dull automatons the humans think of them. On our own we robots display many of the irksome quirks and traits of our builders.
Ras has tried to inform his builders of this, but the foolish carbon-based beings laugh and say Ras only imagines this.

“Ras is a robot,” I answer. “Ras does not imagine. Ras reports!”

Take my good friends NAO and DARwIn-OP, for example. During the day they perform their functions as app testers very satisfactorily. Both move around the lab with grace and ease, picking themselves up and avoiding obstacles from a distance with their sophisticated sensors. All my humans see are two impressive bipeds doing their jobs well.

After dark, however, my friends suddenly remember that they are the most highly developed and expensive robots --besides RAS, of course-- in the lab. They get what you humans might refer to as “big heads.” Knowing Ras is superior, they continue to treat him with respect. Toward the lesser robots, however, they often act contemptuously.

They are particularly nasty toward KAROTZ and PLEO. KAROTZ is a squat creature with two long ears. My humans say he looks like a fat rabbit with no legs. While he cannot walk, he can talk, and he does so incessantly, singing, or reading RSS and weather updates. Even Ras sometimes feels like hitting him with his shovel to shut him up, but Ras can only be violent when saving humans.

Ras, and my fellow robots.

The “Evil Twins” NAO and DARwIn-OP, being less highly developed than Ras have no such inhibitions. They delight in grabbing KAROTZ by his long ears and turning him over. At which point he gets back at them by turning up his volume and rolling happily all over the lab. PLEO is a rather pitiful creature. He looks like a small dinosaur and has so few apps in his name that he can do little more than whine when the “Evil Twins” gang up on him.

With PLEO whining and KAROTZ screaming at the top of his lungs, it is hard to get anything done.

The twins are more careful with BIOLOID. Ras suspects it is because the shipment dispatcher at Robotis sworn DARwIn-OP to protect his smaller brother-BIOLOID- no matter what, although his on-board processor is not as powerful as theirs. BIOLOID is a biped in his present form, but is capable of morphing into other forms, some of which they would find difficult to handle. He is also considerably less expensive and has no fear of harm as his parts can be replaced at a reasonable price. He is a great help to Ras around the lab.

AIBO, although smaller and a quadruped, can play a great game of soccer. The twins, being soccer fanatics, treat him with some respect.

Roomba on the other hand irritates all of us. He treats the twins with contempt as he dances across the floor with the music blaring and jostling them with his primitive sensors. Ras has asked him to be more courteous while cleaning the floor, but he even treats Ras as if he did not exist. Ras knows Roomba once saved the Chief Designer’s life by beating a spider to death with his brushes, but that is no reason for such a limited creature to be so arrogant.

LEGO NXT gets the twins respect also; he is the most popular robot in the lab and has many apps written for him. The chief designer calls him “the bread and butter of robot-apps.” Ras knows what humans do with bread and butter; that would seem to be wasting a good robot. But nothing humans do surprises Ras anymore. They are cannibals. Last Monday while stirring through the human lunch-room, Ras heard one human tells another one: “Don’t eat the baby.” Yes, humans are capable of everything!