Meet Giger. This homebuilt robot stands at a very impressive 2 feet tall and can walk around as if he owns whatever room he is in.
Which it might.
Giger is controlled bia Bluetooth and runs on an embedded version of Linux knows as Buildroot.
It also has a moving red eye like a Cylon. So you know [...]
Masaaki Kumagai and Takaya Ochiai at the Robot Development Engineering Laboratory, Department of Mechanical Engineering and Intelligent Systems, Tohoku Gakuin University, Japan have developed a robot that can balance on a ball – even while carrying heavy loads. While this might at first just seem like a cool trick, it also shows how a robot could be designed to be omni-directional by traveling using a ball, rather than simple wheels.
This is pretty awesome – imagine it as a waiter like R2D2 in Return of the Jedi. Except better – R2 had to work to avoid walls and other obstacles, while this robot would be able to quickly dodge any that come at it.
There are, of course, tons of other uses besides waiter – I work at a place where we unload a lot of stock and then move it around in our warehouse. Being able to just set a flat of product on a robots head and have it move the stock to where it needs to go would be awesome.
Anyhow, check out the video below of it in action!
Back in the old days, a particular product would come down a conveyor. A person or people would take items off of the conveyor and place it in a box or other appropriate packaging. This concept was so iconic that it was used in everything from I Love Lucy to Laverne and Shirley.
This image, however, is about to change in a big way. Enter: The Adept Quattro. This robot is insanely fast. It can pick up items off of a conveyor and place them in any configuration that is needed. It can do this with virtually any item – no matter how delicate – with shocking speed. According to Adept, they have broken what was previously viewed as a barrier to robotic speed. This robot can break the 300 cycle per minute barrier.
Check out this video below. As you are watching it, think about this: This is in real-time. This is not in high-speed. At the 1:30 mark, you can see the robot at its top speed.
Using 7,000 bricks and a robot, architects Fabio Gramazio & Matthias Kohler constructed this “infinite loop” in about a months time. This structure is particularly impressive is not only that a robot constructed it, but that only a robot could have constructed it. To make this work each brick had to be laid in a very precise location. A person just could not pull this off.
For those of you in New York City, you can check out this marvel on Pike Street in Chinatown from now until November 14th.
A team at MIT build an aerial robot that has been programmed to read its surroundings, learn from them and fly the best path through them. It can map out a maze and even fly through windows barely larger than itself.
At a competition, the robot had to fly through a maze and locate a specific panel. It had to do this all on its own. For the first in the 19-year history of this competition, the fifth stage challenge was completed – and it was by this MIT flyer.
Check out the video below – it is really quite incredible to witness in action.
Meet the Scarab. This robot is like the Roomba, but built for heavier-duty cleaning. This is designed to be used in shopping centers or urban streets. It sweeps and cleans up the trash, then locates the nearest trash receptacle that it can use and dumps the trash there. It has two cameras for locating trash and then sweeps it up using its collectors.
It runs on electricity as well, certainly making it a nice alternative to gas-powered cleaners that are currently in use.
Now, I can certainly see this running in a shopping center after it is closed. It would make a lot of sense and be incredibly efficient. However, I am not so sure this could be used on city streets. What would stop someone from just picking it up an taking it? Or running over it in their car on accident (or, if you are a former street sweeper – on purpose).
Still, this is a fantastic design. This is just conceptual at this phase, so no details like cost, when/if it will be available or who will even make it.
Still, very impressive design from Olga Kalugina. It would be great to see this become a reality someday.
Check out more pictures of this awesome robot below.
This fantastic 60 Minutes story shows how robotics can change life for the better right now for soldiers that have lost an arm. This incredible prosthetic, in part developed by Dean Kaman of Segway fame, allows soldiers to actually grip items in their hand – even breakable items – just by “thinking” about it. It hardly seems possible that something this advanced exists now, but it does. It is in beta testing right now, but could become more widely available soon. These are not cheap by any means, but considering they are currently earmarked for soldiers I think we can handle the cost as a country and perhaps give something else up, like maybe that rain-forest in Iowa.
iRobot, the maker of the Roomba vacuum for home use and the Packbot for military use is now showing off a brand-new robot: The Chembot.
This robot can shrink and expand according to what is needed for it to get around. If it needs to fit through a small hole, it can just shrink down, get through the hole and then expand again so that it has faster and better range of motion. Looking at this video, it appears that they are not quite to the stage where it moves freely while shrunk, but it can shrink and expand and then move. This is very, very impressive. This is also intended for military application. Though perhaps in the future, a robot like this could be used to get into hard-to-reach places to do repairs around our homes. Check it out in the video below – the action starts at about the 1:50 mark.
Yesterday I wrote about how robots that are meant to mimic humans do not yet really look human. Well, while that is still true, Hanson Robotics has created robots that have faces that certainly look human. What makes these robots interesting, however, isn’t just that they look human, but that they are being trained to have empathy.
Nixon from Futurama
Hanson and his mutton chops wants to create robots that can sense your mood and act accordingly. As you will see from the video at the end of this post, his robot that looks a lot like Einstein reacts to his smiles or frowns. You will also notice that the robot’s head is the only part of it that looks human. The rest looks like a robot. So basically it reminds me a lot of Nixon’s head from Futurama.
Additionally Hanson is working to bring to mass-market Zeno, a robot that is meant for children that will learn from its environment and from the children. As time passes, it will learn more and more about the habits of the people around it, and will react accordingly. Pretty incredible stuff. The 6 inch model will sell for $299, while a 18″ model will sell for $1500.
So check out the videos below – the first is a presentation Hanson gave at TED. He shows off one of his robots there. The second video is one that shows off Zeno and what it can do. Pretty awesome stuff.
The huge Japanese IT and electronics show CEATEC had not only awesome electronic devices on display, but some very cool robots as well.
First up we have a pop-singing robot from Yamaha:
This robot can certainly sing – though as with most robots that have the artificial skin-look, they also look a little freaky. We are certainly not to a point yet where the robots are indistinguishable from people – and this is a good thing.
Also being shown off was an improved model of the muRata Girl. This unicycle riding robot can successfully ride across balance beams – which is a nice talent. It is intended to show kids how cool robots can be and get them interested in the topic.
Toyota and Honda are not the only Japanese car companies making cool robots. Nissan created these robots to not only show off what they can do in that space, but to show off an avoidance technology that could make its way into cars in the next 30 years. This technology would allow vehicles to avoid any obstacles in their way so that the passengers are safe. Other upcoming improvements are getting the robots to move in specific patterns, keeping a set distance away from other robots while traveling at the same speed.
Finally, we have this robot that will work with your cell phone. I am really unclear on what use this robot could possibly have, but it does look cool. I guess.
Masaaki Kumagai and Takaya Ochiai at the Robot Development Engineering Laboratory, Department of Mechanical Engineering and Intelligent Systems, Tohoku Gakuin University, Japan have developed a robot that can balance on a ball – even while carrying heavy loads. While this might at first just seem like a cool trick, it also shows how a robot could be designed to be omni-directional by traveling using a ball, rather than simple wheels. 
