The 2006 inductees into Carnegie Mellon's Robot Hall of Fame were announced at a reception held this past Tuesday at CMU's Entertainment Technology Center. As in years past, the new class is a mix of both real-world and fictional robots, including Maria, the art deco-inspired "Machine Human" from the 1927 film "Metropolis," Gort, the imposing alien humanoid from 1951's "The Day the Earth Stood Still," David, the mecha-boy from the 2001 Spielberg/Kubrick collaboration "AI," AIBO, Sony's recently terminated robot dog, and finally, the Selective Compliance Assembly Robot (SCARA).
Read the rest of this entry »
Engineers from Carnegie Mellon's NanoRobotics Lab have created a robot capable of walking on water (and eventually land). Like most of the robots developed by assistant professor Metin Sitti's research team, the amphibious Water Runner finds its inspiration in nature, mimicking the locomotive mechanics of the basilisk lizard. The scientists hope that the robot can eventually be used for exploration, search and rescue, or for combating pollution by delivering a bacteria payload to attack pollutants. Hometown newspaper the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review has an article today on their website about the Water Runner.
Read the rest of this entry »
NewScientist.com is reporting today that researchers from Germany and Scotland have built a two-legged robot able to trot at a record setting 3.5 leg-lengths per second, a speed more than twice as fast as the previous best held by a robot from MIT. The foot-tall robot, dubbed RunBot, utilizes a simple sensor system coupled with a neural control program that mimics the way humans walk. The result is a robot with a more natural, efficient gait and the ability to learn to react reflexively to changes in its balance.
Read the rest of this entry »
For some time I've been following Aussie robot hacker sprocket2cog and his work with the Viper robotics kit. The modular robot construction set offers plenty of bang for the buck but has been slow to take off internationally because of limited availability outside of its native Australia. Robots-Dreams.com is reporting that Microbric, creators of the Viper kit, announced earlier this week that they will begin taking international orders online. The Viper kit, Line Tracker Add on Pack, Sumo Add on Pack, and Wheels Add on Pack are available for purchase directly from Microbric's website. Each has been repackaged for international delivery in boxes half the size of their retail counterparts in order to minimize shipping costs. Had I just not picked up a Vex kit, I would definitely be placing an order right now.
Read the Robots-Dreams.com post about the news.
Learn more about the Viper robotics kit at Microbric.com.
TechEBlog.com scores a second nod today with their post about a six-legged robot constructed from precision-milled plywood. The brainchild of Danish amateur radio guru, PC modder, RC expert, and robot builder Thomas Scherrer, aka OZ2CPU, the crawler started its life as two sheets of 3mm thick plywood from which the structure subsystem components where cut based on a stencil Scherrer designed on his PC. The robot has 16 servos: 14 servos for moving the legs and 2 for providing its head with a full range of motion. An 8 MHz Atmel AT90S8515 microcontroller serves as the robot's brain, and a PlayStation gamepad can even be used to test walk cycles and manipulate operating parameters on the fly.
Read the rest of this entry »
It's been a little over 7 months since Tsukuba University engineering professor Yoshiyuki Sankai's HAL (hybrid assitive limb) bionic suit was unveiled at the World Expo in Aichi, Japan. The Raw Feed is reporting today that it will be put to the ultimate test late this summer when mountain climber Ken Noguchi will attempt to reach the summit of Switzerland's Breithorn mountain while wearing a HAL suit and carrying Seiji Uchida, a quadriplegic, on his back. Accompanying them on their historic journey will be Kyoga Ide, a teenager suffering from muscular dystrophy, who will make the climb with the assistance of a second, unnamed HAL-outfitted mountaineer.
Read the rest of this entry »
Wow. Just wow. It's not a functioning robot, but if this fully articulated mech sculpture fails to capture your imagination then you have none. TechEBlog.com had a post earlier today about this incredible piece of art. While there is no text, there are plenty of photos on the original site showing the humanoid in various poses and also photos of the man I assume is its creator. These pictures were just what I needed to get my creative juices flowing on this dismal Monday morning.
Read TechEBlog.com's post and visitor comments.
View the all of the photos at ueba.com.br.
There's a lot of off the wall products being announced this morning, but the most interesting by far is the USB Memory Stick by IWantOneOfThose.com (IWOOT). With the Memory Stick you can "download and upload memory fragments via a temporal lobe sensor and store them on the USB Memory Stick." Up to ten years of memories can be stored on the stick which can then be backed up to computer for long term storage and future retrieval. You can even e-mail memories to family and friends. The $300 price tag is attractive, but unfortunately I won't be able to pick one up since the memory management software is Windows-only at this time. Oh, and there's also that small-print warning that the product shouldn't be used by people that "hear voices in the night."
Read the rest of this entry »
Robots-Dreams.com brings us word today that multi-national retailer Target will begin selling the RoboNova-1 bipedal humanoid in the very near future. I was especially excited to hear the news since my town just got its first Target store two weeks ago. So Target came to town, and now Lem says they'll be selling robots. While contemplating whether it was a coincidence or a sign that I needed to pick up another robot kit, I was leaning heavily towards the latter until further investigation revealed that the RoboNova will only be available for purchase through Target's website. Still it might be a sign, so I should probably start socking some money away just in case.
Read the rest of this entry »
Unpacking the Vex starter kit.
See more.
It's been nearly two weeks since I purchased the Vex Robotics Design System starter kit, power pack, and programming kit, and although I haven't posted much about it so far, I've spent all my recent free time unboxing, examining, reading, and yes, building. Today I've posted a photoset documenting my first look at the Vex components as well as some of my initial thoughts about the system. I've actually already built my first robot (the Sqaurebot example from the Inventor's Guide) and will be posting those photos as soon as I get a chance to prep and notate them. Oh, on a related note, Thunq.com now has a photo section.
View the Vex unboxing photoset and read my comments.
Source: 
Credit: