Hans Anderson has created a robot using Lego Mindstorm that can solve Sudoku puzzles all on its own. The robot “reads” the paper with the puzzle, figures out the solution, then writes the answer down.

Hans has programmed the robot with a Sudoku-solving algorithm. It will recognize numbers and empty cells, then use this algorithm to solve the puzzle. The number-recognition system alone is very cool – let alone the fact that it then uses that to solve the puzzle. The robot is even armed with a pencil, so once the answer has been determined, it will write down the answer. It isn’t fast, but it gets the puzzles right and is a pretty cool feat of engineering.

A new robot, ECCEROBOT, is considered the world’s first anthropomimetic robot. The ECCEROBOT, which stands for “Embodied Cognition in a Compliantly Engineered Robot”, mimics the internal structure of a person.

It has robotic equivalents of muscles, tendons and even bones. The bones are made from thermoplastic poly-morph, which is a material that can be molded at relatively low temperatures and even looks a bit like bone in its coloration.

Right now, it is only the torso that is complete. There are also relatively minor control issues that are still being worked through. However, this shows that robots can be built that not only look humanoid, but that move like humans do. This is useful for not only creating robots that can more naturally interact with people, but in studying how we, ourselves, move.

That, and combined with the “programmable matter” now being developed and we basically have the Terminator.

Watch the ECCEROBOT in action below.

This underground parking structure in Japan is able to hold 800 bicycles in a very small space. However, that is only part of what makes it incredible. The cyclist will put their bike in the entrance of the parking garage. A card will then be given to the cyclist. When the cyclist returns, he just has to stick the card in a slot and the bike comes right back out again, in an incredible 23 seconds.

This garage is 100% automated and uses robots to park the bikes and then to return them to their owners. The robots are based off of industrial robots.

Getting all 800 bikes into the structure took a lot of research as well. It was determined that a zig-zag pattern of parking the bikes was ultimately the best method, though even that took a lot of refinement so that no bike would hit another bike on its way out.

The construction of the garage is also innovative. Using their method they are able to build such a structure quickly and fairly cheaply.

Be sure to watch the video below – this really is an incredible feat of engineering.

One thing that seems to have been lacking in the world of robotics is the ability for delicate, dexterous and most importantly dynamic hand-like manipulation. Over at the Ishikawa Komuro Laboratory they are working on exactly that with surprising and somewhat freaky results.

This amazing unit can dribble a ball, use tweezers to pick up a grain of rice, throw a ball into a target and flip a cell phone up in the air and catch it. It can do all of this and do it scary fast.

It uses a 2-dimensional membrane which covers the fingers and provides tactile pressure feedback so the hand can adjust its grip. I can clearly see this as an important step into the getting automation into agriculture.

According to the U.S Apple Association 62 percent of the total cost of apple production is from labor. If these robotic hands were made to track and harvest apples this would mean a significant cost savings to apple growers. Robots don’t need to rest and can do things very fast with a high degree of accuracy. Combine this feat of engineering with the work NLP is doing with Vegetable Harvesting Systems building intelligent harvesting robots and you could have a completely unmanned farm working 24/7.

This is something I would think any food industry consisting of manual harvesting should be investing in especially with their shrinking labor resources.

Using robots as a part of surgical procedure is certainly something that is gaining widespread acceptance. After all, a robot can be very precise, the surgeon doesn’t even need to be in the same room (lowering risk of infection) and can operate in small spaces.  You can see a video of a surgeon practicing with such a robot on a piece of steak below.

Now, however, it appears doctors can take the idea of surgical robots much further than before. At the Israeli Institute of Technology they have built a prototype robot that can swim through a person’s bloodstream right to the point of where there is a problem. The ViRob can then administer whatever solution is required directly to that point.

This could mean no more pumping radiation throughout a cancer patient’s body, for example, and just targeting the cancer cells themselves directly. No more wasted medicine as any kind of medicine can be distributed right to the damaged cells.

While this might not be the submarine-like ship out of Fantastic Voyage (or Inner Space if you preferred the comedy) it certainly is a huge step forward in the use of robotics in the operating room.

So this isn’t exactly new, but this is one of my all-time favorite Saturday Night Live fake-commercials. I figure, why not post this and combine robots with the hot topic of today: health care.

So now you have to ask yourself – Will Obama’s health care plan protect you from scary robots that are strong because they are made of metal and that will use your medication for fuel?

So let’s say a group of robots needed “food” to survive. Whenever they find food, they not only go to “eat” it, but signal others that food is there.

Of course, this triggers more robots to show up. What if too many robots show up to feed and there isn’t enough food? Would the robots learn not to signal?

In this Wired article that is exactly what happens. The robots learn to conceal their signal so that they can feed and survive.

A true survival instinct can now be placed in the minds of robots.

This kind of breakthrough is huge.

Robots are expensive – they represent a huge investment to a company that buys them. If the company knows that the robots will actively work at ensuring their own safety, than corporations will be more willing to buy. Robots as they are now in industry and other applied areas are largely “dumb” – they do their job and do it as assigned. By giving them the ability to decide the best way to move and to act, they can do more complex tasks and do so without harm to themselves.

While this experiment might seem small, it really represents a large leap forward in robotics.

Meet the BumBot. Invented by Rufus Terrill, the BumBot it built to spray the homeless with water if they refuse to “move it along” when asked.

This isn’t a robot that can think for itself, it is controlled with a remote. It also has a bullhorn attached to the top so that a person can scream at the homeless to move along. There is also, of course, a camera on the robot so the person controlling it can see what is going on.  Finally, it has a small hose sticking out of it that can spray the homeless with water if they refuse to leave the area.

Given the reaction from the man who got hit with the hose, either it sprays a lot harder than it looks or that is actually deadly acid spraying from its … um … hose-like-appendage.

If you wish to learn more about Rufus Terrill you can check out his official Web site.

I will say that I do not live in the Atlanta area at all so I have no idea what his politics are. But I will say that I find it funny that he owns a bar called “O’Terrill’s” – I guess he stuck the “O” in front to sound Irish. I am not sure I could trust such a man.

This robot can play the rather complex “Flight of the Bumblebee” without error. Not only does this robot have the dexterity to do the proper fingering on the flute, but it has “lips” that allow it to adjust the speed of the air-flow as well as how the air is moved across the flute.

The best part of this robot, besides the music, could be the hat. According to the Daily Mail, the hope is to have this robot eventually interact with people and teach them how to play the flute.

Good news for human flautists: the robot might play this song very very well, but all that clicking and mechanical noise certainly won’t make this ready to perform in a symphony any time soon.

Just to keep things “equal” here, since earlier I did a post on Japanese car company robots, are some videos of robots made by American car companies. First up, General Motors.

General Motors hasn’t created a robot in the same sense of Honda or Toyota. Instead, they created a car that can drive itself. It appears to have collision detection and everything.

As you can see, it does a pretty good job, though it appears to be doing a lot of very tiny corrections while it drives. I think that would make the passengers a bit nuts. However, other than that and the incredibly bulky sensor array at the top, this is pretty cool.

Spotted at the Baltimore Auto Show was a Ford robot. Now this one looks a little more like the ones Honda and Toyota made. Except for a couple of things.

First, he is very jerky. Second, he isn’t actually made by Ford. Third that is either a person talking from behind a curtain somewhere or they have somehow gotten the robot from Flight of the Navigator to do voice work for them (this would be the robot’s voice before he turned into Pee Wee Herman).

Ford – this is just a giant fail.

Now on to Chrysler. They have a robot too – one that is very different from the rest. Theirs might be the greatest robot of all time.

This robot pours beer.

Ok, so it isn’t pretty. Also, this is clearly a side-project. But hey! It pours beer! What more do you want, really?

So there you go! The American auto company entries into the robot world. Not quite as cool – but then, these are car companies. So I am not being judgmental here. Just pointing out the differences.