Hasta La Gadget!

Meshworm is the latest robotic creation from researchers at MIT, Harvard University and Seoul National University. You can try beating this earthworm-like robot with a mallet, but the thing just won’t die.


This robot is made from “artificial muscle” made from a flexible mesh tube segmented by loops of nickel/titanium wire. The wire is there to contract and squeeze the tube when it is heated by a flowing current. When you cut the power, it returns to its original shape, creating propulsion just like a worm.

Not using traditional moving parts makes it pretty tough. Big surprise, DARPA has their hands in this project too, not that this worm would be good for gathering intel or helping soldiers.

It does however have potential medical applications, like making them into next-gen endoscopes or something.

While hitting it with a mallet or stepping on it didn’t kill the thing, blowing it up,  setting it on fire or drowning it just might do the trick.

[via Engadget]

We’ve seen a number of options for controlling real worms, but never a worm robot, until now. Enter Meshworm, the latest creation from researchers at MIT, Harvard University and Seoul National University. The bot is made from “artificial muscle” composed of a flexible mesh tube segmented by loops of nickel / titanium wire. The wire contracts and squeezes the tube when heated by a flowing current, but cut the power and it returns to its original shape, creating propulsion in a similar way to its living kin. Taking traditional moving parts out of the equation also makes it pretty hardy, as proven by extensive testing (read: hitting it with a hammer). DARPA is known for getting its fingers in all sorts of strange pies, and it also supported this project. We can’t see it being the fastest way of gathering intel, but the potential medical applications, such as next-gen endoscopes, sound plausible enough. Full impact tests in the video after the break.

Continue reading Researchers create Meshworm robot, beat it up (video)

Filed under: Robots, Science

Researchers create Meshworm robot, beat it up (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 10 Aug 2012 06:25:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The price of freedom is eternal vigilance, and thousands of men and women have given up their lives to protect the freedom of this great country known as America, and no doubt they are more and more technologically inclined these days, with robots playing a huge role in assisting the entire military. DARPA’s latest foray to the underwater scene would be the DASH (Distributed Agile Submarine Hunting) robot which is said to be able to “sniff” out all subs, regardless of whether they are diesel-electric or nuclear, as it combs through both deep and shallow water carefully. (more…)

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: ACTUV Tactics: submarine game designed to help the navy, Autosub6000 underwater submarine robot maps and takes pictures of the ocean floor,

Sighting in a target through the scope of a high-caliber rifle can be a bit more complicated then it sounds — snipers have to account for cross-winds, range and a whole host of external factors that could put their projectile off course. It isn’t easy, and the required calculations can seriously slow down a shooter’s time to trigger. The solution? High tech laser-equipped sniper scopes, of course. DARPA has actually been working on this problem for quite some time, and calls its’ project One Shot.

Previous iterations of the targeting system helped shooters increase their chance of hitting their mark by a factor of four, but suffered from short battery life, range finder accuracy errors and overheating problems. DARPA is putting its faith into Cubic Corporation to overcome these faults, awarding the firm with a $6 million contract to develop a “compact observation, measurement and ballistic calculation system” that it calls the One Shot XG. Like its predecessors, the XG is designed to give the shooter a offset aim point to counteract the environmental conditions that would impact bullet trajectory. DARPA is hoping to see ten weapon or scope-mountable field devices within 15 months. Consider this fair warning, Segway bots.

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

DARPA calls on Cubic Corporation to develop frighteningly accurate One Shot XG sniper rifle originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 05 Aug 2012 06:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Power Pwn, at first glance, might look like a pretty cool looking power strip, but underneath the hood, you will notice that it offers far more than meets the eye. In fact, the Power Pwn will ship with a Debian 6 version of Linux that sports some pretty neat hacking tools which are a snap to use, and not only that, is also extremely difficult to detect. It is said to be able to get around low-level NAC/802.1x/RADIUS network authentication without any assistance, and is also more than capable of moving into stealth mode while ensuring that there is an encrypted link going on to provide white hat hackers a real challenging case on their hands. The 3G link that allows the Power Pwn to remain connected to the Internet will allow one to perform bash command-line instructions via SMSes, while sending feedback in the same way to boot. The Power Pwn will cost you $1,295 a pop, where it seems to boast plenty of unlimited power in the right hands.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Sonic fire extinguisher from DARPA, DARPA reveals gigapixel camera,