NeatTrix

…make me some pancakes.  Rosie the robot’s great-great-great-great-great-grandmother shows off her laundry folding skills. Something to note: the video says 50x which means this 2 minute video took one hour 40 min to film.

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Finally, I no longer have to feel inferior to those swarthy human lifeguards.  EMILY, or EMergency Integrated Lifesaving lanYard (why do people love acronyms so much, especially when they have to go to such linguistic lengths to have it come out as the desired word; apparently we can just pick letters at random to get the desired effect [LOVE or Leave grandma in the nursing hOme two states oVer and wait for her to diE] but I digress) EMILY uses sonar to track a drowning person, jets over to them at 28 mph, and then either takes them to shore or waits for the puny human lifeguard to get there. (continue reading…)

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Or Roboplow rather.  This is awesome. I’m always looking for new ways to get snow off my driveway.  I like the remote control, but something autonomous would be cool too.

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The Wiimote controlling drum machines, by which I mean, machines that play the drums. A quick read of his website tells me that he’s using Arduinos to control the machines, plus some custom stuff. Pretty nice.

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Cohda Wireless, an Australian company, has been awarded a huge contract with several European countries to begin testing their automobile to automobile communication system.  This isn’t some new technology that will let you send threatening text messages to that jerk behind you, this will actually be your car talking to other cars.  And what will your car be saying? Things like, “I’m going really, really, fast and I’m coming right for you”, or “I’ve just run a red light”, or “the guy behind my wheel is a crazy person, perhaps you should take a side street”.  Now your car, equipped with a similar device will let you know that something’s coming up and to be aware of it.  At least for now, that’s all it’s going to do.  Future versions, they claim, will include things like helping you to brake, if you’re too slow, or swerving around things in the road.  One thing they metioned was the having the car drop a curtain over the windshield  so you won’t freak out and do something rash (really?).

A nice idea.  The technology behind the autonomous car stuff, I think is the most interesting part, although they’re not testing that.  Another thing they should do, for every vehicle not using this device is in high traffic areas and build (or in most cases just repurpose) stationary radar detection/camera systems and give access to that data.

Here’s the article:http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article6294866.ece

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What looks like a very straight forward interface using a 3D camera.  The user’s hand is tracked in real time and the robots position is matched to the operator.  I see some potential problems however.  Some interpretation is being done by the computer to determine the position and orientation of the hand which could limit the precision.  So you’ve started with a robot with the potential for far superior accuracy and speed, then you’ve limited that by tying it to a human operator, then you’ve gone and made the interface between the human and computer interpretative and imprecise, further muddying the movements of the robot.  With this level of inaccuracy, why not just use a hand-held remote control?

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Dean Kamen, noted inventor of the Segway, among other things, demonstrated a really exciting prosthetic arm prototype at the TED talks in 2007. Funded by DARPA, Kamen calls his arm the “Luke Arm” in reference to the robotic arm Luke Skywalker receives after dad lops off the real one. The DARPA contract was one of several aimed at developing the next-generation prosthetic arm for amputee soldiers returning from war. The first video is from his TED talk, the second is a more in-depth look at the technology at his lab.
Videos after the jump.

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Bell Lab’s demonstrated their first attempt to synthesize a human voice at the 1939 World’s Fair in New York City with the Voder, and the attempt was rather an impressive one.  The quality of human voice replication hasn’t progressed much further until just a couple decades ago.  It did have it’s drawbacks however.  For one, it require a specially trained operator needing a year of training to master the complicated coordination of keys and pedals. (continue reading…)

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Ground-mobile robots expend most of their available power just being mobile. Being able to negotiate complicated terrain, or even stairs, adds complexity to mechanics and the programming. Motor noise makes stealthy operation nearly impossible while the robot is in motion.

Boston Dynamics’ Big Dog (www.bostondynamics.com/content/sec.php?section=BigDog), for example, can carry a large payload (400 lbs), and is impressively nimble. The video also demonstrates that the Big Dog is not very fast (4 mph), and is quite loud (like a million angry bees), because of the gasoline engine needed to power it. It also looks weird (maybe because there’s no identifiable head?).

Why not just use big dogs?

(continue reading…)

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Just when you thought your boss couldn’t get any more annoying.  Enter the micro-manager’s dream come true.  Not to be tied down by simply spying on you from strategically hidden camera and microphones, key loggers, and straight up reading your emails, they now have the ability to roam the halls of your office searching for ways to justify their paychecks, at least to themselves. (continue reading…)

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Lucky, the German Shepherd, is truly lucky. He’s going to get a nice, warm place to sleep…outside, where he belongs. When he gets tired of watching the buffalo roam (Seriously, there’s a herd of buffalo nearby), and chasing rabbits he’ll have a warm retreat from the snow, ice, freezing rain, not-so-freezing rain, fog, drizzle, snizzle, and 40 other kinds of precipitation that only maybe the Inuit have proper words for, and which try our souls practically every day. Right now, there’s like 3 feet of global warming in the yard, and another foot or so due in the next 36 hours.

The intent is to build Lucky a doghouse controller with a Bluetooth connection. The controller will regulate a heating pad, sense Lucky’s presence in the doghouse, measure temperatures inside and outside the doghouse, automatically dispense food, and maybe control some lights or a fan (we have occasional summer weather). We’ll have the capacity to add other features. The Bluetooth connection gives us the ability to monitor Lucky’s use of his house and remotely change operational parameters. Eventually, we’ll take Lucky’s house off the grid, and convert the power source to wind and/or solar.

Stay tuned for further developments. We’re going to do this in installments, mostly from things we have lying around.

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The human eyeball is wired backwards.  I just thought I’d throw that out there.  I would say the eye is evidence of design by committee, rather than a single creator.  There’s light and neurons, and blindspots, but my point is, evolution doesn’t have a goal in mind. It uses what works in the moment. It’s not thinking about a million years down the line.  It’s not thinking at all.  Which brings me to robots. Of course.

Robots are designed.  And as such numerous methods of locomotion have been devised for them.  Some are mimicry of animal movement, others are completely original, others still, are wheels.

After the jump, I have collected a group of my favorite robots/mechanisms and their wacky movement.

UPDATE: I’ve added an extra robot plow near the end.

(continue reading…)

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