Hasta La Gadget!

We all know that humanoid robots roaming the streets aren’t that far away, but there are still plenty of kinks to be worked out of the designs. The AMBER 2 Robot does its best to emulate human foot movements, with the goal of making a machine that can walk on all sorts of terrain.

The AMBER 2 Robot from Texas A&M Amber Lab has almost all of the pivot points necessary to mimic human-like locomotion, which is very complex. You’ll note the purposeful stumble at the end of the video, which was intentional to show that the boom only provided lateral stability.

I want to see when these kinds of legs will be integrated into a real walking robot. Hopefully, Skynet won’t use them to help exterminate us all.

[via Engadget via Ubergizmo]

Those looking to tinker with humanoid robots aren’t exactly lacking for options these days, but Cognitive Spring is taking a slightly different approach than most with its Arduino-based cSpring bipedal robot — one of the semifinalists in the Insert Coin competition here at Expand. Rather than offering a readymade robot like Nao that largely makes software the focus of user customization, cSpring is designed to be highly customizable (and open source) on both the hardware and software fronts. Indeed, the company is hoping to encourage such development by rewarding crowd-sourced work with what it calls “paid achievements.”

As for the robot itself, it’s currently designed to work with an 11-inch MacBook Air that conveniently doubles as its torso, and it relies on a PrimeSense motion sensor to monitor its surroundings. One of the real selling points for potential developers, though, are the array of servos that power the robot’s legs, which can operate simultaneously and provide some 40 pounds of lift apiece. Those also give the robot a decent range of movement, although it hasn’t yet learned to fully walk (that’s one area the company suggests could be expanded upon by others).

Filed under: Robots

Comments

Source: Cognitive Spring

Well, there goes my plan of hiding on a rock cliff from robots who can’t get me because they don’t know how to walk a tightrope. It appears they can now walk tightropes with the greatest of ease. Then again, I’ll just bring some scissors with me. That’ll teach ‘em.

Check out this video of a humanoid robot walking a tightrope with no problems at all, complete with techno music to accompany the feat. It takes its time doing it, but still it’s doing it way better than most humans. The robot spreads its arms to help maintain balance and slides its feet one at a time.

So I have my supplies ready, including scissors and I have a nice high spot picked out to survive the robot apocalypse. Even if they deploy a high wire, I can cut it with cable cutters. I will probably starve up there after my supplies run out, but they can kiss my cold dead corpse.

[via Hackaday via Geekosystem]