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1 Feb 2006 LordM
(Journeyer) 1 Feb 2006 svo
(Journeyer) 31 Jan 2006 steve
(Master) 31 Jan 2006 magnus
(Journeyer) 31 Jan 2006 horar
(Journeyer) 20 Jan 2006 sovrr
(Journeyer) 20 Jan 2006 ROV-D
(Journeyer) |
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7 Feb 2006 Byon
(Observer) 4 Feb 2006 aidin
(Observer) |
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Choreographing a stage full of dancers is a bit of challenge. What to
do? Better props? Better costumes? We could tie a rope to a dancer
with a harness and swing them over the crowd? Riverdance was always a
hit! Let's do something really special like that! How about this year
we cross
the Riverdance and Robots and get
violent dancing robots on stage! Adelaide-based Australian Dance
Theatre have incorporated robotic towering, ambulatory, geometric
structures and smaller, swarming silvery creatures with spidery legs
that perform as equal partners with the humans on stage. The show,
called Devolution, is noisy, violent and artistic. It is a strange
dancing collaboration of humans and robots. The software to make the
robots move with the dancers is complex yet the machines can many times
mimic the organic movement of humans. I'm imagining something like
Riverdance and something noisy like Stomp, towering and artsy like
Cirque Du Soleil with humans and robots.
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It hasn't gone unnoticed by RC servo manufacturers how many servos are
ending up in robots these days. Hitech has developed a new line of
servos designed specifically for robots. A short Robot Magazine
review gives an overview and provides photos and specs for the new
servos. The new Hitech servo line addresses the main problem with using
hobby servos in robots - the short lifetime that results from heavy use.
Hitech's HSR-5995TG
Robot Servo has titanium gears, hardened steel gear pins, and
produces 416 oz-in of torque with a holding power of 541 oz-in (at
7.4v). The servos are also available in models with shafts extending
from both sides of the servo. More details can be
found in the Hitech
2006 Robotics Catalog (PDF format).
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A new Bay Area start-up launched by Furby Creator Caleb Chung
sets out to make mechanical animals with emotions.
Mercury
News Article.
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In Kuwait, robot Jockeys are being used instead of young children for
camel races.
Of course, this stretches the term robot since they are remote controlled.
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A New
York Times article offers an amusing look behind the scenes of an
upcoming performance of Les Freres
Corbusier's play Heddatron.
Several of the characters in the play are robots. The robots were
constructed by a New York robotic art collective known as Botmatrix. The robots "not only move
and speak, but also emit lights, smoke and ticker tape." Normally,
tthe robot builders of Botmatrix build only autonomous robots but they
made an exception to allow the robot's actions to be controlled during
the play. The play presents robots in a positive light and Bomatrix
believes it will improve people's attitude toward robots. According
to Botmatrix member Cindy
Jeffers, "There's a lot of anti-robot
prejudice and we'd like to turn that round." You can find photos of
the robots on the Botmatrix website.
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Bennet Robot Works...,
actually the name is a misnomer since the robots don't work at all.
Nevertheless, these amazing sculptures created from a mixture of old and
new materials would make an interesting mantel piece for those who have
money left over from their
AIBO and Roomba Purchases.
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Shri writes, "I've just published an interview
of Mark Tilden. [It] has information about the new RSMedia robot in
there, including its use of Linux and some release schedules. The
interview talks about other interesting Tilden subjects. Did Tilden
squish bugs are take them apart? Does Hong Kong look like Blade Runner?
Why does Japanese TV feature so many shows about "robots and
monsters interested in high-speed urban renewal"? The interview
also includes photos and release info on the RSMedia Bot, PEA-Bot, and
RoboReptile.
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There's a NewScientist
special feature out today on advances in Robot technology that
covers the state of human-like robots and lists some of things holding
researchers back from achieving practical humanoid robots. Summaries of
three additional articles available only to subscribers are included.
They cover advances in robot speech demonstrated by the Waseda
Talker robot, advances in walking such as those described in our
recent article on the Max Kurz
walking algorithm, and NASA's humanoid Robonaut program.
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Fellow robot builders have heard it a million times: "Can you make a
robot that can fetch me a beer?" Well, since beer tastes like reindeer
pee to me, my answer is a firm "No". But, beer drinkers can now rejoice
because the Asahi
Brewery is giving away
5,000 FULLY STOCKED refrigerator robots capable of removing the can
and pouring the brew automatically. Now, if we can just automate the
obnoxious belching process.......
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According to a LinuxDevices
news release the SSV Embedded
Systems company has released the design of their DIL/NetPC ADNP/ESC1 Single
Board Controller under the GNU GPL,
allowing anyone to freely use the design. The 128 pin QIL board runs
uClinux on an FPGA softcore and includes 8MB Flash, 16MB SDRAM,
Ethernet, serial and parallel ports, 20 GPIO ports, general purpose
timers, JTAG, an IDE/CF interface, and a 16bit expansion bus. The boards
also come with uClinux and U-Boot. This might an
interesting starting
point for a GPL'd robot controller design.
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In this age of home-grown low-quality on-line video, I couldn't resist
the urge to browse for interesting robot-related content.
Some are interesting, some inspiring, some amazing, and many totally stupid!
Even robots have to have fun every once in a while!
Summersaulting Hitec Robots at CES
Japanese crawling robot
Mech warrior
Citroen dancing car
Aibo vs Iguana
Monkey vs Robot
Robot rock
Robot stepping stones
Suicide robot bomber
Human robot dance gone bad
Bodybuilder robot dance
Robot doing sign language
Stanford robot basketball
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The Swirling
Brain pointed out a story at
we-make-money-not-art.com on the Autonomous Light Air
Vessels designed by Jed
Berk and Nikhil
Mitter of the Art Center College
of Design in Pasadena, California. ALAVs are flocking, robot blimps
that exhibit a variety of behaviors depending on whether they are alone,
interacting with other ALAVs or interacting with humans. They change
colors to indicate particular states. The ALAVs include sensors based on
Sun SPOT
boards (PDF format). You'll find lots of photos and video on the ALAV project page.
A few more details about the concept can be found on the new ecology of
things class website and an ALAV
overview document (PDF format). The class was sponsored by Sun
Microsystems.
And, in case you were wondering, the three ALAVs are named Bubba,
Flipper, and Habib.
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I noticed a memepool link this
morning to Crabfu's live
steam creations. These are steam powered, robot-like, radio
controlled creations. They include the Steam
LocoCentipede, the Live Steam
Walker, and the under-construction Live Steam
Horseshoe Crab. These are impressive works of engineering and, with
the addition of sensors and controllers, would make impressive robots.
The question is, what sort of controller would be in
keeping
with the Victorian technology used here? Cams? A Difference Engine? If
you need further inspiration to build a steam powered robot, Crabfu
provides a nice page of Steam power links that
will take you to photos of real and fictional strange
Victorian steam powered machines and Steam Power
forums.
Read more... (1 reply)
The Robotics Institute at CMU has
released a new technical report,
titled Terrain
Classification from Aerial Data to Support Ground Vehicle Navigation
(PDF format), detailing a method of improving navigation for high-speed
off-road ground robots by providing additional sensor data from an unmanned
flying robot. CMU has actually developed a working system, called the NREC
PerceptOR, comprised of autonomous
UGV (the PerceptOR) and an autonomous
helicopter (the flying eye). By working
together as a team, the robots are able to find the optimal path for the
ground vehicle and avoid dangerous terrain such as cliffs that would not
normally be visible to the UGV. Not suprisingly, the research is being
funded by DARPA.
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