Hasta La Gadget!

Move aside, Sand Flea, you’re not the only jumping robot in town. The researchers over at the University of Pennsylvania have taught their little six-legged X-RHex Light to make leaps and bounds as well, making it one of a few bots to both run and jump effectively. While it can’t spring as high as the Boston Dynamics critter, the X-RHex can cross gaps with not just a bound but a running gait, given enough room. It can also flip itself over, climb onto a ledge with a double hop and perform a leaping grab to something as high as 73 centimeters (28.74 inches). The X-RHex itself isn’t new; the curved-legged contraption has been around for at least a couple years, and even sported a cat-like tail for balance at one point. Still, the fact that the hefty 6.7 kilogram (14.8 pound) machine can now somersault through the air is a quite a victory, and one that reminds us of the impending robocalypse. Check the video below to see the bouncy guy in action.

Filed under: Robots, Alt

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Source: IEEE Spectrum

We’ve seen plenty of robots scale walls over the years, from models that emit supersonic streams of air to gecko-inspired creations, but few can carry more than their own weight, much less handle rough terrain. Enter this unique Swiss-made machine, which handles both tasks with aplomb thanks to the rapid melting and cooling of its thermoplastic adhesive feet. Created by the whiz kids over at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, the plastic compounds in the contraption’s tootsies melt at around 70 degrees Celsius (158 Fahrenheit), where they’re tacky enough to stick and fill surface gaps. If the bot needs to take a step forward, a thermoelectric effect kicks in to cool the plastics down, detaching the foot in the process. Repeat the motion several times and you get a tiny climbing critter that’s able to carry about six to seven times its own weight over complex surfaces, a feat that’s sure to be of actual use someday. It’s certainly more practical, though a lot less fun, than one that mixes cocktails. Go on after the break to see the little climber in action.

Filed under: Robots, Alt

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Source: IEEE Explore, New Scientist

It’s always better when more prizes are involved, right? In the case of this week’s giveaway, Diamond Multimedia, a company specializing in gaming hardware, is hooking our readers up with four of them. The first two winners will receive a Radeon HD 7850 video graphics card (valued at $200 each), while the next two will get either a GC1000 USB game console video capture device ($130) or a VStream Wireless USB PC to TV HD content streamer ($100). Start your engines, enter using the widget below and good luck!

Filed under: Announcements, HD, Mobile, Alt

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The White House West Wing, as ever, is very busy. It’s nearly time for White House Press Secretary Jay Carney’s daily press briefing, which today (April 22nd) will reveal that the Boston bombing suspect, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, won’t be tried as an “enemy combatant.” Just upstairs, the atmosphere is thankfully less intense. In the East Room and surrounding chambers, over 100 students — STEM-based competition winners from 40 different states — are making their best efforts to remain chipper while explaining projects they’ve no doubt discussed dozens (if not hundreds) of times before.

Later this afternoon, President Barack Obama will address the dozens of attendees — accomplished students and educators, as well as folks like Bill Nye (“The Science Guy”), Levar Burton (of Reading Rainbow fame) and Kathryn D. Sullivan (the first American woman to walk in space). He’ll characterize the students’ projects as “really cool,” and he’ll call out some lucky winners by name while speaking to the importance of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education in the United States.

Today is the culmination of years of work for many attendees, and it’s an important day for the current administration as well. The White House Science Fair is an annual highlight of its “Educate to Innovate” initiative — the Obama administration-led program that directs both public and private funds to a variety of programs, all aimed at bolstering STEM education in the US. It’s a long-term, ambitious plan, and one that the White House is re-dedicating itself to in its proposed fiscal year 2014 budget: a planned reorganization coupled with $265 million, “redirected from within the Department [of Education] and from other agencies.”

Beyond the occasional PR bump that events like the White House Science Fair bring, the Educate to Innovate initiative is largely one that won’t reap dividends for some time. In 20 years, however, it may be the most important component of Obama’s legacy.

Filed under: Science, Software, Alt

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The (almost) all-plastic 3D-printed Liberator pistol was announced by Defense Distributed late last week, but with the gun’s blueprints and construction details now live on the company’s own DefCAD design site, it’s also released a video taken during its testing. In front of a Forbes onlooker, the clip apparently shows a .380 caliber bullet being fired by the Liberator.

The only non-plastic part of the design is a common nail, which acts as the firing pin. Defense Distributed’s founder Cody Wilson has worked over a year on the project, apparently citing the one-shot pistols that were designed to be air-dropped over France during World War II as inspiration — also called the Liberator. This modern version is, however, formed of 15 components made inside a Stratasys Dimension SST 3D printer. The video of the test shot and more details are right after the break.

Filed under: Science, Alt

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Source: Defense Distributed (YouTube), Forbes, DefCAD