I get the fact that some people need telepresence, but ultimately even the cheapest options can cost you thousands. That’s why I really like this telepresence robot hack from Johnny Chung Lee. The best news is that it only costs $500.
Wiimote hacker Johnny has built this inexpensive telepresence bot using an iRobot Create, a cheap netbook, and a bit of laser-cut acrylic. The whole thing runs on custom software which let’s Johnny remotely steer the robot and see where he’s going as his face appears on the remote netbook screen. He even hacked the iRobot’s charging station so the ‘bot can recharge itself without human intervention.
This is definitely a cool option for people who absolutely need to be somewhere they currently aren’t. Read more about Johnny’s telepresence ‘bot over at Procrastineering, where you can grab the software for yourself if you want to try to make your own.
iRobot debuts AVA telepresence robot with tablet controls
iRobot's first attempt at a telepresence robot, a modified Roomba, was a false start, but now they're back with an all-new bot called AVA which should right all wrongs. The bot can adjust its own height from three feet to five feet tall to meet you at eye level, with a tablet perched on top (this is CES 2011, after all). Its base is an odd three-wheeled configuration for maneuverability, and the robot has DARPA Challenge-style environment mapping to avoid bumping into anything or anybody. For sensors the AVA is using dual Kinect-style PrimeSense sensors, along with laser rangefinders, scanning acoustic sensors, and bump sensors. There's naturally a microphone and camera for the bot's primary purpose: video telepresence. What's more interesting, however, is that iRobot has an apps platform for this, which will allow developers to build new functionality. There's no word on price or when this will go on sale, but we already know one thing: we want one. Check out some quality time that PC Magazine's Lance Ulanoff spent with AVA after the break.
EngKey telepresence robot teaches English to Koreans by way of the Philippines
You know, for all the hubbub we've been hearing about le robots (the robots), you'd think we'd see them put to better uses than chasing our pets and killing people. Right? Right. Well, the best use we can think of is education, and that's exactly what they're doing at an elementary school in Daegu, South Korea. Developed by the Korea Institute of Science of Technology (KIST), EngKey is just under three-and-a-half feet high, features a video display for a face, and seems hell bent on taking all those "teach English in Korea" jobs away from shiftless American college grads looking to postpone responsibility for one or two more desperate years. There are currently twenty-nine such devices, which -- get this -- are actually operated remotely by teachers in the Philippines. Is this the end result of globalism? Not quite yet: for the time being, the robots are still too cumbersome to operate and expensive to justify putting into production. But who knows? Maybe someday, kids.
I pity the young children, really I do. We make "movies" about Terminators and smart AI for entertainment purposes, but in the future, with obstacle-dominating robots like HRP-2, it will be their reality.
HRP-2, you see, takes obstacles and makes them into tools; uses them to its advantage. Take this video example. In it, HRP-2 uses a table to assist with a sitting down motion. It also kicks a ball, spelling the eventual doom of pro footballers the world over.
Primitive, to be sure, but it's an important first step for future robots that will be using our stacked corpses as a platforms to steady their assault rifles. [New Scientist via Engadget]
TalkTorque robot gets day job as creepy museum guide, TalkTorque 2 is now the future (video)
As if there weren't enough Greys flying around in saucers and conducting strange experiments on us at night, a team at Tsukuba University went ahead and created their own. Two of them, as a matter of fact. It started with TalkTorque, a short, white bot with swoopy arms and head designed to help research in non-verbal communications. That poor guy is old news now, relegated to guide duty at the school's Groupware Lab. TalkTorque 2 has come along with slightly refined looks and a chunky collar containing a trio of motion- and range-sensing cameras to help the thing figure out who it should be talking to. Of course, it still has no mouth, so the "talking" will be in broad arm gestures, which it will surely use to guide you to his ship's examination chamber. There's a video of that communication technique below, along with some dramatized footage of the TalkTorque 2 in action.
Gesture-Driven Robot Arm: Perfect for Remote-Controlled Stranglings
There are already remote-controlled robots out there that allow an operator to control robotic arms using their own hands. Doctors are even using such technologies to perform remote surgery. But this is the first time I’ve seen a robotic arm that can be controlled simply through gestures.
Developed at the University of Tsukuba, this robot arm is connected to a computer with a pair of video cameras which can detect the hand, arm and finger movements of its master. Whatever he does, the robot follows. As you can see from the video below, it’s actually quite impressive how well it mimics the individual finger movements and grip of its operator.
It’s even been tied to a database that’s capable of adapting itself to numerous different hands. At this point, the robot arm system still has a tiny bit of lag, and isn’t precise enough to perform medical procedures. Still, it’s a very promising step in the development of remotely controlled robot avatars – and that’s something we all want, right?
What happens when you outfit a robot with a pair of prosthetic blades and fourteen artificial, pneumatic-powered muscles? You end up with a bipedal humanoid who researchers hope will have the ability to run like a sprinter.
Simply referred to as Athlete, it is the pet project of Japanese researcher Ryuma Niiyama, who began working on the mecha-sprinter while completing his PhD at the University of Tokyo (he's since moved onto post-doctorate work at MIT). According to IEEE, Athlete has seven muscles in each leg, and each of those muscles has anywhere from one to six actuators, providing enough air power to replicate our own muscle system. In addition, the robot is outfitted with touch sensors on each foot, and an inertial metering system to help it stay upright.
Currently, Niiyama and his team are busy trying to teach the robot how to run, which involves analyzing the timing and patterns in which human muscle sets contract and relax. Right now, Athlete can only cover about three steps (at 1.2 meters/sec) before collapsing, which, BTW, is up there with the Big Dog on the creepiness scale. Niiyama hopes to get Athlete out on a real track someday. [IEEE]
strawberry picking robot wants to gently handle your berries --- 日本機器人農夫
Leave it to the Japanese to create yet another specialized robot to do a job that previously only a human could do.
Developed by Japan’s National Agricultural and Food Research Organization [JP] this award winning robot [JP] can delicately pluck individual strawberries from the vine. Not only is it gentle enough to snip the stalks of the berries and drop them into a padded crate, but it’s smart enough to detect the color of the perfectly ripe berry and only pluck those. By using a pair of cameras, it’s able to detect the precise position of each berry in three dimensions, then uses special software to only select berries that are at least 80% red.
As you can see from the video clip, the robot currently can only handle strawberries, but could be modified to harvest other sorts of fruits or veggies if so desired. The robot is currently being field-tested by farmers to see if it could be more efficient than human berry picking. Early signs are that at a rate of one berry every 9 seconds, the robots could help reduce harvesting times by about 40%.
Looks like the berry pickers’ union is going to have a beef sometime soon.
Darwin-op open source robot kit ready for you to give it life
Head DOWN! The DARwIN-OP robotics platform has a head like Sputnik, mostly spherical but pointy in parts. The open source robotics kit has been spied in a new version that has open software and hardware along with an open platform for some all open robotic lovin’. I want one; it looks cool in a robot bipedal bunny sort of way.
The robot kit is developed by RoMeLa at Virginia Tech with help by Purdue University, the University of Pennsylvania, and Robotis Co. The line of bots have been in development since 2004. The open source design is intended to encourage geeks to toy with the hardware and software to create their own mods. There are numerous software implementations for the kit with C++, Python, LabVIEW, MATLAB, and more.
CAD files are available publically for the design and construction of the bot. The thing is rumored to cost about $8,000 (USD) to build which is about half the price of competitive products on the market. The bot is 17.9″ tall, weighs 2.8kg, and has 20 degrees of freedom. Its controller is an Atom Z530 processor with 1GB of RAM, 4GB of storage, and it can run Linux, XP, or Windows 7.
kinect hacked to control pr2 robot by willow garage
Hacks of the Microsoft Kinect are just flooding in now that the device is in the hands of geeks everywhere. I bet Microsoft never thought people would be using the Kinect for anything other than gaming as it was intended.
A new Kinect hack surfaced from Willow Garage. This is the company behind that crazy expensive PR2 robot that is used for research into human-robot interfaces. The guys over at Willow Garage took the Kinect and hacked it to allow motion control of their PR2 robot.
This sounds like the tech the little boy used in the horrible remake of Lost in Space with Joey in the lead. The hack is very cool though, and Willow Garage is working on hacking two of the devices to give 3D input for gestures.
This funny lookin’ fella weighs just 27 pounds, has 12 legs, and can carry you around on its back if you let it.
The Land Crawler xTreme robot offers its master a ride on top of its square platform top, provided you don’t weigh more than 175 pounds. As it ambles around, it definitely doesn’t look like the smoothest or speediest way to get around the place, but it sure has got plenty of style doing it.
Funny thing is the maker of the robot says he made the Land Crawler eXtreme as a toy for his 2-year old son because he told him that he wanted to ride on a robot. Why couldn’t we all have dads who were that handy with robotics?
In 1950, former Royal Air Force officer Tony Sale built a 6-foot-tall humanoid robot, one of Britain's first, from the scraps of a crashed bomber. After spending 45 years stored in a garage, it's walking just fine.
Tony Sale is now 79, but he built his first robot, George, in 1940 when he was just 12 years old. As he grew so did George—subsequent versions of the robot grew taller and more complex, adding a moving jaw to simulate speech and a radio remote control.
Sale joined the air force in 1949, teaching pilots how to use radar at the RAF Debden base in Essex England. During this time he constructed his largest and most sophisticated George to date, building the robot out of aluminium and duralumin from a Wellington bomber that crashed near the base. It was six feet tall and used two motorcycle batteries that allowed to walk, turn its head, move its arms, and sit down.
Though six-foot George gained some attention in the press, computers at the time weren't advanced enough to make him an "intelligent" robot, Sale explains and eventually George was packed away in his creator's garage. Until recently:
I dug him out of the garage where he had been standing for 45 years...I had a fair bit of confidence he would work again and luckily I was right. I put some oil on the bearings and added a couple of new lithium batteries in his legs, switched him on and away he went. It was a lovely moment.
Awwww! What a nice robot reanimation story. Now Sale's donating George to the The National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park, which Sale himself helped found. A much nicer home for a historic robot than a garage, I'd say. [DailyMail]
In the week I've had these PowerStriderjumping stilts, not a single person I talked to knew exactly what they were. Even I wasn't sure, as I was wearing them. But after a while, things started to make sense.
There's no limit, no limit I tell you, to the power of Lego. This is a do-it-your-self 3D laser scanner made of Lego used to scan Lego pieces to use it in a Lego 3D design software to build more Lego.
The scanner uses a NXT controller, Lego pieces and modifications to connect the laser reader to the software. The results are incredibly good. These are the scanned pieces, in the 3D CAD software LDraw:
I love the idea of Lego scanning Lego to create Lego. You know where all this is going: It involves paradoxes, judgment day, bleeding goats and inter-dimensional portals. [Brothers Brick]
Tskuba, Japan (CNN) -- Thirty years ago doctors told Noboru Matsumoto he would never walk again.
Matsumoto had suffered severe brain injuries after a motorcycle crash. The accident left his speech slurred and unable to walk properly, though he has some movement in his left leg.
It was in that movement that Professor Yoshiyuki Sankai saw hope for Matsumoto to defy the original doctor's diagnosis.
Professor Sankai is the inventor of the Hybrid Assistive Limb (HAL), a wrap-around robotic belt and legs. Sensors sit on top of the patient's skin that picks up the brain signals instructing the body to move.
"The sensors detect human intentions and finally, the robot walks instead of the human's body," says Professor Sankai.
Because Matsumoto has nerve function, he was the perfect patient to benefit from Professor Sankai's HAL suit.
When I see the smiling faces of the patients my heart is encouraged. --Professor Sankai, inventor of HAL
To demonstrate the "suit", the power was turned on and two nursing aides assisted Matsumoto as he pulled himself up. They assisted, Matsumoto did the standing on his own.
When the steps came, tentative and small, Matsumoto had the infectious smile of a teenager. It was easier to imagine what he looked like before his accident, as he put one foot in front of the other.
Matsumoto has used the robotic legs before at his rehabilitation clinic, but he never tires of the sensation of standing and walking.
"It's hard to explain," says Matsumoto, in halting English. "I'm very happy."
That transformation in the patient is what drives Professor Sankai, as he looks towards globalization of his invention. There are 140 HAL suits in use in Japan, renting for just under $2,000 a month. Professor Sankai is in the final stages of bringing the suits to Sweden and Denmark and is hoping to one day introduce the suits to the U.S., to help the aging baby boomers.
Professor Sankai walked me through Cyberdyne, his venture firm and R&D laboratory where the public can glimpse other models of his HAL suit.
The models vary in size and purpose. There's a bulkier, full body suit aimed at giving caretakers superhuman strength to lift patients in nursing homes. Another variation is more scaled down; looking to a future when the robotic legs are so thin the patient could wear them underneath clothing.
Cyberdyne is science fiction come to life, which is fitting, since Sankai was first inspired by robotics after reading Isaac Asimov's "I, Robot." A theme repeated in Asimov's fiction is the "Three Laws of Robotics," which includes not harming humanity.
While the professor's invention bears the same name as the malevolent robot in the movie "2001: A Space Odyssey", the intention of all of the HAL suits, is benevolent.
Professor Sankai says governments from the U.S. to South Korea have reached out to him to develop his robotic suits for military usage. He's turned down the deep pockets of those governments, he says, because his inventions are only for peaceful means.
The choice is a simple one, says the professor, if you spend any time with his patients.
"Their faces completely change," explained the Professor. "When I see these smiling faces, my heart is also encourages (sic)."
Noboru Matsumoto is certainly smiling more, even as his physical therapy session comes to an end. After each session, he has something that was so elusive three decades ago-- hope.
"Hashiritai desu," says Matsumoto. "I want to run."
The advancement in robotics is impressive but sometimes, it can be a bit scary. I don’t know what to think of this Gemenoid-F, a robot actress. This android is the first ever real robot to get an acting role on stage in Japan and definitely in the world too.
“Acting” for the robot is controlled so it’s easier for the director or any co-actor or co-actress. There’s no diva or primadonna to deal with as she it will do everything as told.
You may watch the Gemenoid-F Robot Actress in action here:
This is from Japan, so I can't tell if the mohawk and quirky fashion sense are intentionally ironic or not (I kid, Japan, honest!), but I am sure that Professor Sekine here just built a robot to kill some bees.
The 'bot, called Mohican, is a remote- and voice-controlled insect hunter. Impervious to wasps' stingers, it climbs ladders and delivers death to those beehives and wasps' nests where humans dare not tread.
Kidding aside, Sekine also envisions his bot doing other hazardous-to-human jobs in nuclear power plants and, presumably, battling giant wasps that were horribly mutated by said power plants. On that front, we certainly wish him well when testing and deployment begins next spring. [Asahi via Plastic Pals via Engadget]
Robots have been singing for a minute. But the HRP-4C doesn't just sing, she performs. Watch her chirp the lyrics to her song, work the crowd, and shake her stuff in sync with her back up dancers. It's pretty amazing.
Even by human standards, her dancing is not too bad. Her singing is actually quite good (if you played someone this and a Ke$ha song and asked which one was sung by a robot, etc). And aside from her strangely large hands and armored robot legs, she does an amazingly convincing job of looking like a real person while she's performing. Her singing's in sync with the song, her dancing's in sync with her singing, and, especially with the rhythmic accompaniment of her four backup dancers, the whole thing is just enjoyable to watch—not as a robot performing a catchy little pop song but simply as a catchy little pop song being performed. And that's pretty damn wild.
The divabot, as she's being called, is being developed at Japan's Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology. She uses special software to precisely mimic a human singer's head movements and facial features and synthesizes notes with Yamaha's Vocaloid software. Masataka Goto, head of the Institute's interactive media group, hopes that someday the robots will be used by the entertainment industry. From the looks of things, that's not too far off. [YouTube, PopSci]
台灣科技產業進步,機器人研發也處於成長階段;台灣大學電機系為提升台灣智慧機器人產業和國際地位,今年爭取到全球規模最大的高科技專業協會IEEE(Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers),來台舉辦「智慧型機器人與系統國際會議」(IROS 2010)。
This is what happens when you let a radioactive snail in at night. Havoc! Luckily, Evolution Robotics' Mint cleaning robot did a darn good job cleaning up after it, as you can see from a long-exposure photo of its mopping.
The above photo was taken by BotJunkie, when the cleaner was set to the mopping function. It apparently took the cleaner 20 minutes to clean that space, but only 15 minutes to sweep the floor. As you can see from the photo below, it does a more thorough job when mopping.
Mint uses wet or dry Swiffer pads to clean floors with—floors, we should point out, that are non-carpet. $250 is quite a bit to spend on a vacuum cleaner that doesn't do carpet, but by the sounds of BotJunkie's review, it does hard floors very proud. [BotJunkie]
Sometimes I wonder why Japan needs all of these robots. Researchers at the Tokyo Institute of Technology have built a robotic grasshopper. It’s called the Air Hopper and it has four legs that allow it to move around.
And move it can! It can jump, roll thanks to its four wheels, and naturally, hop. This allows it to cross uneven ground easily. Bigger obstacles can be crossed using the pneumatic cylinders.
The researchers have measured that the Air Hopper can jump as far as 4 feet forward and about 1 foot high. The robot is made out of reinforced plastic and it’s 50 inches long, 21 inches tall, and weighs 72 pounds. That’s a heavy robot for something that can jump into the air. Ultimately, this type of technology will give us those tanks that can walk on four legs or robots to explore other planets, right out of scifi, animes, and mangas.
Tibi and Dabo are 2 cute robots designed to provide a wide range of services to citizens in Barcelona’s public spaces. The final shape of Tibi & Dabo came from different conceptualization and development techniques, such as surveys, sociological, iconicity pyramids, and ethnographical tools. These robots are the result from collaboration between the School of Design ESDi and the Institute of Robotics and Industrial Informatics (IRI), who coordinated the European, funded URUS Project (Ubiquitous Networking Robotics in Urban Settings). Tibi & Dabo are here because the project URUS attempts to analyze and test the idea how robots can interact with human beings in a cooperative way. We can use robots to assist us like when we need transportation of goods or surveillance in urban areas in order to improve life quality.
Designer : ESDi and IRI (Institute of Robotics and Industrial Informatics)
Robotics has made tremendous strides in replicating the senses of sight and sound, but smell and taste are still lagging behind, and touch was thought to be the most difficult of them all...until new pressure-sensitive electronic skin came along.
The electronic skin is made out of germanium and silicon wrapped around a sticky polyimide film. The prototype measures about 7.6 square inches and can detect different pressures between 0 and 15 kilopascals, which is the range of pressures one might encounter while typing on a keyboard or holding a small object. The skin does this thanks to its rubber skin, which changes its thickness in response to changes in pressure, which is then measured and controlled by built-in capacitors.
Design team member Ali Javey explains why a robot with a well-developed sense of touch is so crucial to expanding robots' usefulness:
And the same logic is true outside of the household, of course, but it's worth remembering how many simple activities human take for granted would defeat current robots. Even something as basic as getting dressed or reading a newspaper requires a fairly intuitive sense of touch and pressure, and this new skin puts those abilities within robots' grasp.
This is definitely a breakthrough, but sensing a range of pressure is hardly a good substitute for the extremely sophisticated sensors we have built into our skin. We don't just sense pressure, but other linked sensations like heat, pain, and others. Of course, once we perfect one type of artificial sensor, we could make pretty much any other type of sensor we want, giving robots the ability to detect anything from radioactivity to biological agents purely by touch. That would greatly increase the usefulness of robotic probes in areas humans can't venture.
Even better, this artificial skin could one day help restore sensation to humans that have lost feeling in parts of their body, although research leader Zhenan Bao says that's still a ways off:
"Connecting the artificial skin with the human nerve system will be a very challenging task. Ultimately, in the very distant future, we would like to make a skin which performs really like human skin and to be able to connect it to nerve cells on the arm and thus restore sensation. Initially, the prototype that we envision would be more like a handheld device, or maybe a device that connects to other parts of the body that have skin sensation. The device would generate a pulse that would stimulate other parts of the skin, giving the kind of signal 'my (artificial) hand is touching something', for instance."
[Nature Materials; the image up top is only representative of this technology and is actually from the University of Tokyo's E-Skin project.]
(CNN) -- Here's a new way of looking at oil spill clean-up: Forget the big ships, massive work crews and hefty price tags.
Instead, just deploy an army of autonomous, oil-scrubbing robots. They can find the oil on their own. And when they reach the site of an oil spill, they talk to their robot friends to figure out the best way to get the whole thing mopped up.
That's the vision the Massachusetts Institute of Technology put forward on Wednesday as the school announced the development of a prototypical robot called Seaswarm. The $20,000 robots will be unveiled officially to the public on Saturday at an event in Venice, Italy, and will be ready to deal with oil spills in about a year, said Assaf Biderman, who oversaw MIT's research team on the project.
The Seaswarm robots, which were developed by a team from MIT's SENSEable City Lab, look like a treadmill conveyor belt that's been attached to an ice cooler. The conveyor belt piece of the system floats on the surface of the ocean. As it turns, the belt propels the robot forward and lifts oil off the water with the help of a nanomaterial that's engineered to attract oil and repel water.
"You can imagine it like a carpet rolling on the surface of the water," said Biderman, who also is associate director of the SENSEable City Lab.
The material on the robot's conveyer belt, which MIT calls a "paper towel for oil spills," can absorb up to 20 times its weight in oil.
Once it has absorbed the crude from the surface of the ocean, the robot can either burn off the oil on the spot, using a heater on the "ice cooler" part of its body, or it can bag the oil and leave it on the surface of the water for a later pick-up, Biderman said. That oil could be reused or recycled.
The robots are designed to work in a swarm, he said, meaning thousands could be deployed on the same spill at once. They coordinate with each other by using GPS location data. That lets them plot out the most efficient way to tackle a clean-up project.
Biderman said the Seaswarm robots are relatively cheap, quick and effective at cleaning up oil spills.
Had they been deployed on the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster, he said, the Seaswarm robots would have cleaned up the oil in two months at a cost of $100 million to $200 million, far less than the actual clean-up bill.
The Seaswarm robots operate on solar energy and require only 100 watts of power, or about that of a bright light bulb. They could stay at sea for months, Biderman said, and could operate around the clock.
The conveyor belts on the robots also are engineered in a way that they hug the water to prevent them from flipping over.
"Because it adheres to the surface of the water, it cannot capsize," he said, "So it can withstand quite severe weather. Imagine this like a leaf that lands on the surface of the water and moves with the waves and the currents and cannot be flipped over."
Traditional oil skimmers are attached to large boats. They must be operated by people, which increases their cost and they are hampered by severe weather.
About 800 skimming boats were deployed in response to the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster, which began in April and led to nearly 5 million barrels of oil being released into the ocean, according to government estimates. By comparison, 5,000 to 10,000 of MIT's autonomous robots would have been needed to respond to the spill, Biderman said.
MIT will continue research on the robots for about a year, he said, at which time the robot technology would be ready for commercial production and possibly a buyer.
Other groups are developing oil-spill cleanup technology, too.
Case Western Reserve University has developed another nanotechnology "sponge" material that could be used in response to such disasters.
And a company called Extreme Spill Technology says on its website that it has developed a traditional, boat-based skimming technology that works much more quickly and in rougher waters than the traditional skimmers.
Biderman said MIT's oil-sopping robot would be most effective in situations like the recent oil disaster, where oil is spread out.
"Ideally, when spillage happens, the best thing to do is to contain it right where the spillage occurs," he said. "But quite often the oil goes out of containment, and this is where this technology would be most effective."
But the robots were actually designed with smaller, localized clean-ups in mind, he said.
"We're hoping that spillage like what we've seen with Deepwater Horizon will not occur again, but oil leakage constantly happens and that's really what motivated us," he said. "When you drill offshore, you always have leakage. And you can imagine a team of robots waiting around the corner for a spill."
I wasn’t able to find out too much information about this robotic fish, but it really is a pretty cool bit of engineering.
From what I can tell, Sedensha Co. made this electric fish (link translated from Japanese), which can wriggle its way through the water just like the real deal. Its movements are controlled through electrostatic actuators which replicate the movements of fish muscles. The whole contraption is placed inside a silicon rubber fish, filled with silicone oil. Yum, silicone oil. I guess they were all out of cod liver oil. So without further ado, check out the amazing Japanese Robo-Fish in action:
I like how they even went the extra mile and stuck some googly eyes on it. I don’t know why, but it reminds me of that Dreamcast game Seaman. While the fish definitely has realistic moves, if I were a fish in that tank and saw Robo-Fish coming my way, I’d wet my little fish pants. Of course, I’d be underwater, so nobody would know. Whew.
Science Fiction has been less-than-kind when it comes to giving robots an environmentally friendly outlook. Robots are supposed to destroy the world, not save it, right? Nay. Nay I say. And so also says Anna-Karin Bergkvist, designer of this tree planting robot. Reforestation on the horizon, that’s what this robot says. Four legs, extendable planting arm, and planting head. That’s what we’ve got here. One green robot walker.
Designer: Anna-Karin Bergkvist
Only Chen
发表于:2010.08.17 11:07:43 AM文章主题: Re : Re: 樂高機器人知道怎樣在短時間玩出魔術方塊來
As if ice cream doesn't practically sell itself in the summers anyway, a Japanese theme park decided to hire a cute robot named Yaskawa-kun to hawk the delicious treat. I think you'll understand their choice after you see a video of him at work.
Yes, he really is so cute that he'll probably sell twice as much ice cream as a human counterpart. [Robonable via CrunchGear via Engadget]
As if ice cream doesn't practically sell itself in the summers anyway, a Japanese theme park decided to hire a cute robot named Yaskawa-kun to hawk the delicious treat. I think you'll understand their choice after you see a video of him at work.
Yes, he really is so cute that he'll probably sell twice as much ice cream as a human counterpart. [Robonable via CrunchGear via Engadget]
Climbing stairs is one of the hardest physical tasks for a bipedal collection of motors and circuits, as Honda's ASIMO can relate, but one man's managed to achieve just that with this head-banging Lego Mindstorms NXT robot. After spending years tinkering with the plastic blocks, 222Doc's X-2 Chicken Walking Biped can autonomously walk up and down flights of small steps with relative ease, perform headstands and even scale five-inch cinder block cliffs if precariously pushed. The robot requires only seven Lego servo motors plus a touch sensor and gyroscope in each foot, but also uses a pair of third-party multiplexers (also spotted in that transforming Wall-E) for fine control of the extra motors. Watch it perform after the break, but stop the second video at 3:20 if pain makes you queasy -- the bot takes a pretty ugly spill.
Japan's latest robot arm won't flip pancakes or do dishes, and you'll have to control its every move via remote, but it enables a surprising range of motion that some disabled individuals just can't manage on their own. The RAPUDA (Robotic Arm for Persons with Upper limb DisAbilities) is a modular, wheelchair mounted device that weighs just thirteen pounds, yet extends over three feet to pick up objects (up to one pound) from a nearby table or floor. Its relative sloth and noise may irritate some, but it's all nostalgic to us -- it sounds just like the Radio Shack Armatron that graced our childhood. Now, where did those D-cells go... Video after the break.
Telenoid R1, the robot brainchild of designer Hiroshi Ishiguro, is what I imagine it would look like if Casper the Friendly Ghost got lucky with a sperm. It could also be the future of telepresence in Japan.
The 11-lb. robot's arm stubs, flagella tail, eyes, mouth and limbs all move in tune with the user, courtesy 9 actuators contained within. And yes, the androgyny is on purpose because it theoretically allows both male and female users to use it to scare relatives and friends with equal ease.
And just how much does pure, androgynous terror cost? A cool $35,000, which, sadly, does not include the cost of therapy. A cheaper, although no less terrifying talking scarecrow version covered with cloth instead of silicone is expected to sell for $8,000 sometime in 2011.
Not keen on sleeping anytime soon? Watch the video:
For about $70 and six AAA batteries, WowWee's Roboscooper, will keep your home's floors clear of any one ounce objects. Any heavier than that and, well, get off your lazy ass and pick it up yourself.
Care to control Roboscooper's movements a little more closely? Switch from autonomous to remote-control mode and lift tiny object to your heart's content. Pre-order now for a late August delivery. [WowWee via Robots Rule via Engadget]
(CNN) -- When Trevor Blackwell, CEO of a company called Anybots, wants to know what his employees are up to, he sends a robot to their cubicles.
"I can see if people are busy on something -- and then won't interrupt them," he said this week. "Or, you know, if they're doing something that looks interesting, or if they look stuck, I'll have a conversation with them."
This isn't your standard "Office Space" conversation. Blackwell boots up a "telepresence robot" -- which looks like a combination between a Segway and Johnny 5 from those "Short Circuit" movies -- to talk to his employees from his home, 10 miles from Anybots' office in Mountain Home, California.
The 5-foot-6, 35-pound robot contains a video camera, a still camera and a microphone. From a laptop, Blackwell can see everything the robot sees. He hears what the robot hears. And, when he talks, the robot projects his voice.
He drives the robot, called QB, with his computer keyboard. A sensor stops it from running into doors and tables. The robot zips around at 3.5 miles per hour, and its battery lasts up to 8 hours, or the length of a typical human workday, he said.
Watch the company's demo video, and this will all make more sense
Blackwell says that this is how the office of tomorrow will work. Within a year or so, he says, every office in Silicon Valley, California, will have about one telepresence robot for every 10 employees.
His is one of several companies trying to push this idea of the robot-infused workplace into reality. Others companies include RoboDynamics, WowWee and iRobot.
Anybots' QB robot is available for pre-order now. It ships to customers in the fall.
At $15,000, the QB is designed for commercial clients now, Blackwell said, but he thinks consumer robots aren't too far off. People could use them to go on remote vacations, he said, touring the streets of a faraway country or interacting with the locals without ever leaving their bedrooms.
CNN spoke with Blackwell about the QB, the robot-laden future of the modern American office and robot-commuting etiquette. The following is an edited transcript.
What is a telepresence robot?
A telepresence robot is like a two-way video-audio system on wheels. So you can see people; they can see you. You can talk to people, they can talk to you, and you can move it around remotely. So you can drive into peoples' cubicles, drive into the conference room, drive into the lab, drive out to see what they're doing.
Why would someone need that?
People that are working with a remote team need it the most -- so, often there's a team that works together where most of the people are together in one place, but one person is in Europe or on the other side of the country.
So it's really about letting the remote person join in the conversations wherever the conversations are happening.
In general, how have the employees accepted it?
For the first minute or so, we're talking about, "Hey, I'm in a robot." But after that, we basically get down to business, to whatever it is we were going to talk about.
I talked to a couple other people who worked in robotics, and they said one of the big challenges is getting everyday people to accept a robot wheeling around in their space. I wonder what you make of that.
Yeah. It's a big challenge. It has a lot to do with the design of the robot. A lot of robots in the past have been big, heavy beeping things, where everyone had to get out of their way. The new generation of robots is light and unobtrusive in an office environment. That makes a big difference.
Tell me about the design of this particular robot. It doesn't look exactly like a person. Is that intentional?
It was somewhat intentional. We actually had a previous version that did look more human-like: It had more of a torso and more of a face on it. And it was confusing, because people wanted to be talking to a robot, and they wanted it to have a robot personality, so we ended up with something that sort of occupies the same space as a person -- it's 5½ feet tall, you know, and ... people will include it in a circle of conversation around a white board.
Is this a new area of research, or has it been around for a while?
It's been around for quite a long time, but only for very specialized uses because you couldn't do it over a long distance. For 20 years or so, this kind of thing has been in use for bomb-disposal robots, where it might save your life to be 100 yards away. But it's only recently that it's been practical to do it over the Internet, because the Internet was fast enough to do it. You're streaming video.
I read that the receptionist in the Anybots office sometimes telecommutes [via robot]. What is that like for people who come in from outside the office and are greeted by a robot?
Very quickly, her personality comes through, and she puts the visitors at ease and offers them drinks. It's all about the way people approach it. If you approach it as "We're here to have a business conversation," it quickly gets to that.
Can the receptionist robot actually go get people those drinks?
The robot doesn't have hands. So, you know, it's really just showing them where the fridge is. But that seems to be good enough.
Where do you see this going in the future?
Mainly just more wide use of it in more situations. If people are working all day in an office, it's definitely nice if you can save them a commute.
Do you see uses for this outside of the office?
Definitely. One of the big uses is in factories. We use it in our factory, which is actually just on the other side of town. But so many factories are in Asia.
The advantage is, you can have your most experienced engineer go look at that thing coming off the production line instantly, rather than having to send someone there who has to be a generalist and has to spend a day flying there.
What about remote tourism?
It's a fascinating idea. We haven't really seen it happen yet, but I'm sure that it will. Like a lot of things -- like when e-mail first came out, people only used it for sending serious documents, and now people will use it to send one-sentence things to the guy on the other side of the office. They do that all the time.
So I think, as it becomes more common, people are going to use it for more frivolous purposes.
Do you warn people when you're coming to a meeting as a robot?
I never do.
How come?
I don't feel I have to. That's kind of my prerogative to not have to drive somewhere.
Do you think, eventually, this will be a consumer technology?
Yes, both we and other companies are working on sort of lower-cost, consumer versions.
How far out are those?
There is one available now called Rovio, that's like a $300 thing. It's small. It's like 6 inches tall. So it's better for talking to kids than being taken seriously in an office environment.
Are these robots going to change the relationship between people and machines?
People will just think of it as just another gadget, like they think of their cell phone. They don't think very much about the fact that they're carrying this amazing piece of technology in their pocket all the time. It's just something everyone does. And I think telepresence robots are going to be like that in five years. It's just one of those things you expect to see.
What's the biggest technical challenge in this field?
Definitely, Wi-Fi range is one of the big problems. When you run out of Wi-Fi range, it has to stop and back up a little bit. And the big change there that's coming is that WiMAX, or 4G, will be deployed in most American cities, and then telepresence robots will be able to be deployed anywhere in the city.
Have you used the QB outside?
We take it out the front door all the time. ... We have to set up a big antenna to make it work. We've driven it around outside and talked to people. It's quite pleasant.
Is it rugged enough to handle outside terrain?
We designed it thinking about offices, but it actually does very well outdoors. It has 12-inch-diameter wheels, sort of the smallest size of bicycle wheels. And so it handles outdoor terrain pretty well.
When is this going to be available?
It's shipping in the fall, and you can pre-order it now on the website.
How many pre-orders have you gotten?
We're not releasing numbers yet.
Have you started producing them?
Yeah, we're in pre-production, and we've built 25 of them so far. And there are a lot more coming in the fall.
dfrobotshop rover: programmable tank robot on a budget
If you’ve always wanted to build your own programmable robot, price or technical complexity might have gotten in your way. But this new robot from RobotShop brings the cost down to a pricepoint that mere mortals can afford, and is easy to assemble and get started with.
Priced at just $89.99 (USD), the DFRobotShop Rover is an Arduino-compatible (ATMEga 328-based) robot that runs on treads like a tank. The compact kit gives your everything your need to get started, including the assembled circuit board, robot frame hardware, and a Tamiya motor gear box and tread and wheel set. The robot is powerful enough to carry a payload of 2kg (appx. 4.4 pounds) without any problem.
All you need is to grab the Arduino programming software, hook up a MiniB USB cable, and some AA batteries, and you’ll be able to build your own robot tank army on a budget. Maybe the government should buy some of these to do menial tasks.
You can get your hands on the DFRobotShop Rover kit as well as a variety of accessories over at RobotShop now.
When you think of robotic police enforcement, I would hope that your mind would travel first to the most awesome of all part-robot police enforcers, that being of course Robocop. I’m not sure if Jamie Martin had RC in mind when he designed “C.R.A.B.”, but certainly this amazing machine would be right at home in a modern sequel to those fabulous action movies. The letters C.R.A.B. stand for Cybernetic Remote Autonomous Barricade, which means that if you see this death-defying looking metal six-leg at the door to anywhere, you ain’t getting in.
This is a real big deal. For real.
The technology behind the artificial intelligence used in this fabulous machine has been being developed over the past 12 years in relative secret between weapons manufacturer Dalton/Stanley and megacorporation Omni Consumer Products.
Next generation armor and weapons, very possibly on the streets in the real world very soon. In fact, similar all-terrain robots are being developed for military uses, setting in motion what might be the largest change in the way wars are fought in the history of the world.
NOTE: this is a concept right now, but we (humans) have been talking about the day when robots walk around on their own since robots were first conceived. Someday it’s gonna happen. And the CRAB shall command them!
Most robotpets may not be easily mistaken for the real thing, but that's not likely to be the case with the ChouChou Electric Butterfly, which might even have a few people reaching to free it from its jar. Unfortunately, it's the jar that keeps the butterfly "alive" -- it has some AA batteries in its lid that apparently allow the butterfly to respond to vibrations and flutter about. That may not sound like much, but the effect is pretty striking -- see for yourself after the break. Of course, just because it's simple doesn't mean its cheap. You'll have to shell out a hefty $76 to bring this one home.
The fact that I'd be terrified if I saw the Army's prototype Robotic Tentacle Manipulator skittering toward me is just a side effect of its design. The real reason for its snake-like limbs is adaptability.
The robot cooked up by the U.S. Army Research Laboratory is supposed to be useful for rescue missions, diffusing IEDs and everything in between. Plus, we could eventually see giant tentacle robots because the design behind them is meant to scale.
Snake robots are nothing new, but the key here is putting together multiple limbs to work as a team for locomotion and tasks. This gives it a much more delicate touch needed for diffusing an improvised bomb instead of just being able to slither.
The Army says the robot has the ability to "crawl, swim, climb or shimmy through narrow spaces all while transmitting images to the Soldier who is operating the system." And that's not even mentioning the prototype's capabilities for 3D mapping and touch sensitivity, which even helps it open doors, a persistent problem with robots.
Now that it's figured out those pesky doors, who knows how soon it'll decide to open your closet and hide inside.[Army.mil via Cnet]
Here's a robot learning to flip pancakes. It's hard not to laugh, watching this dumb bot flub flip after flip. But we won't be laughing when we're running for our lives, slowed down by a stomach full of fluffy pancakes.
Also: the robot seen here is dubbed the Barrett WAM 7 DOFs. IS GIZMODO WRITER BRIAN BARRETT A POTENTIALLY MURDEROUS PANCAKE FLIPPING ROBOT? I'll kill him just in case. [Vimeo]
Today we've got a Lynxmotion manipulator arm that's been expertly modded to be controlled by a USB mouse. [Insert image of those little green aliens from Toy Story here, gazing upwards in adoration.]
The video shows how perfectly the mouse operates this thing: sliding the mouse controls its movement in all directions, the scroll wheel raises and lowers the claw up and down, and clicking the left or right button closes or rotates the claw. The arm picks up the figurine in the still quickly and accurately.
The brain of this robotic arm is an Arduino Duemilanove (if you've never worked with Arduinos before, they are great microcontroller boards; the Arduino Mega was an integral part of my senior design project in school), and the robot arm itself is a Lynxmotion AL5D, which is used to drive six servos.
Maybe I can make one of these in my house like those claws at the arcade (or in front of the grocery store these days), with an enclosure, some cheap prizes, and a coin slot, and see if I can make a little money when friends come over. [Hackaday via Ubergizmo]
Tommy Chung
发表于:2010.07.22 11:39:24 AM文章主题: Re : 樂高機器人知道怎樣在短時間玩出魔術方塊來
The Rubik-cube-solving robot race continues. After the classic 3x3x3 cube and the 4x4x4 cube, here comes the Lego Mindstorms robot that can solve a 7x7x7, powered by an Android phone. We are headed to mass self-destruction, I tell you. [AndroidGuys]
Michael Waldron was born with a congenital malformation that left him without four fingers on his right hand. Struggling to fit in—and function—his entire life, 18-year-old Waldron found new hope with a brand new bionic hand. Video inside.
Waldron appeared with his mother and NBC Chief Medical Editor Dr. Nancy on The Today Show this morning to speak with Matt Lauer and show off the functionality he now has, thanks to a brand new type of bionic hand that only 10 people in the United States have been affixed with. It was an inspiring segment—scientifically and emotionally—that makes one stop and really think about what technology is now able to do for those who can most benefit from it.
And if everything else about Waldron's story didn't make you teary-eyed, consider this: his new hand was installed just in time for his high school graduation, allowing him to shake the hand of the man who handed him his diploma.
Take a look at what the crew at Willow Garage, a company that aims “to lay the groundwork for the use of personal robotics applications in everyday life” has done to make their work time more productive.
If I could have a robot that could do things for me, I’m petty sure this would not be the first thing I’d request. Laundry would probably be first on the list. Then, vacuuming. Weeding the garden would rank high up on the list, too.
However, if I were to show this video to my husband (or come to think of it, my buddies Dori and Val over at More Hip Than Hippie), I’m sure the first words I’d hear would be “I gotta get me one of those!
The HULC exo-skeleton, Lockheed Martin's prototype heavy lifter for infantry troops in the field, has its battery and is now ready for human trials. If they're successful, field tests could be close on their heels.
A quick primer though, before anything else: HULC, or Human Universal Load Carrier, could be the military's answer for troops who need to carry heavy loads—in this case 200 pounds—in the field of battle.
It's been in R&D for a while, only recently had its battery finalized, and today is preparing to enter the first of a series of serious $1.1 million biomechanical tests that could very well decide if this ever sees the field, or combat, in a few years' time Reports Danger Room:
"Biomechanical testing will measure the energy expended by a soldier when using the HULC," according to a Lockheed statement. "The laboratory testing will also assess how quickly users learn to use the HULC system when carrying various loads and moving at various speeds. The contract includes options for field trials to test the system's utility in operational environments."
So one small step for HULC, and one small step for the program—it could still be years before this admittedly cool device sees service, regardless of the results. [Wired]
Tommy Chung
发表于:2010.07.19 11:22:11 AM文章主题: Re : Re: 樂高機器人知道怎樣在短時間玩出魔術方塊來
Tommy Chung 提到:
Cat amputee fitted with 'bionic' feet --- CNN (真是貓狗的福音)
South Korea has been working on deploying armed sentry robots along the border with North Korea since at least as far back as 2006, and it looks like it's still keeping at it. While complete details are a bit light, they country apparently put a pair of new sentry robots in place in the Demilitarized Zone last month, which pack both a machine gun and a grenade launcher to ward off intruders. Those would of course be controlled by humans, but the robots apparently use heat and motion sensors to do all the monitoring on their own, and simply alert a command center if they spots a trespasser. Of course, they are still just in the testing phase, and the military says it's waiting to see how things work out before it begins a more widespread deployment.
Kondo aims lower down the food chain with cute turtle robot kit
Kondo's bipedal robots have always filled us with a sense of awe, whether they're duking it out in the arena or practicing touchscreen moves. However, we'd never quite seen a Kondo bot that we'd classify as cute until this robot turtle came along. The Kame Robotto is apparently the first in the Kondo Animal series, and it's honestly a pretty simple kit -- nine servos, a tiny board and a 10.8V, 300mAh NiMH battery pack , plus software and a simple frame. That said, it's pretty amazing how tightly these off-the-shelf components come together to create a scuttling, waving little thing, and we dare you to watch the video after the break without feeling the slightest twinge of compassion for the bot. RT Robot Shop wants ¥39,900 (about $450) for the creature, which is reportedly limited to 100 pieces -- if you happen to live in Japan, get your preorder (for July 15) in at the source link.