Hasta La Gadget!

A cheetah can run faster than any other animal. A gecko’s feet can stick to almost any surface without using liquids or surface tension. And some roaches scurry at nearly 50 times their body length in one second, which, scaled up to human levels, can be around 200 miles an hour.

The wonders of the animal kingdom are not just for fans of National Geographic. Robotic designer Sangbae Kim, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is trying to understand how he can take some of the mechanisms animals use and replicate them in robots.

The animal kingdom provides the best ideas for creating mobile robots, says Kim. Locomotion and movement are the core parts of an animal’s life. “Animals have to find food, shelter; move towards water or away from a predator,” he says.

“Moving is one of their biggest functions, and they do it very well. That’s why ideas from nature are very important for a robotic designer like me.”

Mechanical design derived from biological models is something Kim has been working on for years, first at Stanford University and now at MIT. The simplification and adaptation of the fundamental design principles seen in animals has led to the creation of his bio-inspired robots.

Among the robots Kim and his team have designed are the Stickybot, a robot that has foot pads based on a gecko’s feet, and iSprawl, a robot whose motion is inspired from cockroaches.

Kim’s latest project is a robot inspired by the cheetah. The idea is build a prototype robot from a lightweight carbon-fiber-foam composite that can run at the cheetah’s speed of 70 miles per hour.

It’s an ambitious project. Current wheeled robots are efficient, but can be slow in rough terrains. For instance, iRobot’s PackBot, which is used by the U.S. military, can only travel at speeds of up to 5.8 miles per hour.

“Most wheeled robots today can do very well on flat surfaces, but they are slow,” says Kim. That’s why he’s looking to the cheetah for ideas. The cheetah has an extremely flexible backbone that gives extra speed or force to its running motion.

Over the next 18 months, Kim and four MIT graduate students will start building and testing prototypes. The first step will be to create a computer model to calculate the optimal limb length, weight, gait and torque of the hip and knee joints.

The biggest challenge in this project won’t be the structure, but getting enough power from a motor to get to the desired speed quickly, says Kim.

Before the robotic cheetah came Stickybot, a mechanical lizard-like robot that takes its inspiration from the gecko. Geckos can climb walls at almost the same speed — of about 1 meter per second — at which they run on the ground. This remarkable ability makes it the perfect animal to draw upon to create a climbing robot, says Kim.

The secret to the gecko’s agility is that it uses a phenomenon called directional adhesion, or stickiness in just one direction, to adhere to walls.

“The gecko’s feet can detach very easily as it moves forward,” says Kim. “If you take normal sticky tape and press it to the wall, you will find it is tough to detach it quickly. Directional adhesion solves that problem.”

The pads of a gecko’s feet are covered with tiny hairs called setae and spatulae that can be up to one-thousandth the width of a human hair. The hairs cling to surfaces using molecular interactions known as the Van der Waals force. The force helps support the gecko’s weight as it scrambles up vertical surfaces.

Kim has tried to recreate that idea for the Stickybot. The Stickybot’s feet is covered with hairs made of rubber silicone. The rubber is thicker than those on a gecko’s paw, however, which limits the robot’s abilities. It can only climb extremely smooth surfaces such as glass, acrylic or a whiteboard.

Kim says his team is working on refining the Stickybot so that it can adapt to climbing on walls with uneven textures.

If the Stickybot can be improved, there are plenty of applications for it, such as repairing of underwater oil pipelines or even window washing.

Fujitsu has been wowing us with cellphone concepts for quite some time, but this year’s round at CEATEC is undoubtedly a show-stopping bunch. Some of the hottest ideas to come from the outfit’s most recent mobile phone design contest were on display here in Japan, and we went end to end capturing the lot. The clear pebble mock-up (shown above) was easily the crown jewel (in our mind, anyway), with a small black blob able to morph into different screens (media panels, a keypad, web browser, etc.) depending on which corner you drag said blob into. There was also a design reminiscent of paper mache, not to mention one with a circular vibe that just has to be a long lost cousin to Motorola’s AURA. Have a gander at the masterpieces in the gallery below, but don’t bet on these hitting your favorite carrier anytime soon.

Filed under: Cellphones, Misc. Gadgets

Fujitsu cellphone design contest yields mind-blowing results: hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 06 Oct 2009 05:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The results have been announced to the annual awards which, as their name suggests, honor smart product design.

Some of the most notable winners this year were the LUMIX DMC-GF1SK camera, the Naoto Fukasawa-designed Samsung N310 notebook laptop, and, bizarrely, the Green Tokyo Gundam Project.

Alongside those there were some other sub-categories, including the Long Life Awards, which looked at products long-used and cherished. As you can see from the gallery (click the images to enlarge), there were some of the most ordinary but yet interesting objects here, including glue, Cup Noodle and a urinal!

Also, the Frontier Design Awards showcased products which displayed new lifestyles that will develop in the near future. One of the best of these is a TV screen created by Hitachi that would be controlled simply by hand gesture. Handy for those times when you can’t locate the remote!

Judges included the ubiquitous Kenya Hara, Shunji Yamanaka and Hiroshi Naito.

There is also a free exhibition showcasing the top products. It runs October 1 to November 8 at Tokyo Midtown Design Hub.

Images are courtesy of JIDPO.

Do you know how old the current iMac is? Half a year. Or two years, if we’re talking form factors. In terms of major Apple design overhauls, six months isn’t a very long time, but considering that the all-important holiday shopping season is about to kick off, it follows logic to think that Apple would update its most consumer-facing Mac lineup in preparation. AppleInsider seems to have a pretty good read on a purported refresh, noting that a thinner chassis (predictable, but appreciated) and all-around lower prices are on tap. We’re told that the enclosures could closely mimic the firm’s new Cinema Displays in terms of industrial design, and while details on actual specification changes are next to nil, we are told that a few amenities “not previously available” would become so. Who’s down for throwing out wild suppositions? (And no, Blu-ray doesn’t count.)

Filed under: Desktops

Updated iMac lineup rumored for near-term release originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 24 Sep 2009 15:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We know, we know — you’re probably still waiting for the Apple tablet that’ll never come, but how’s about a prototype alternative from said outfit’s arch enemy to tide you over? Gizmodo has just let slip details surrounding what was previously a top secret project deep within the lairs of Redmond, but given that this is more of an advanced proof of concept than anything else, we’re doing our best to curb our inner enthusiasm about a near-term release. We’re told that the folding device could eventually ship with dual 7-inch displays, both of which support multitouch gestures and can also be controlled via a stylus. It should too boast a camera and possibly an inductive charging pad on the rear, though we can’t help but be a wee bit frightened by hearing that the user interface is “complex.” Essentially, the Courier is a touch-friendly, two-screen tablet that can’t let go of the tried-and-true pen input method, and your guess is as good as ours when it comes to purpose. Though, something tells us ASUS might just have the answer. Video’s after the break.

Continue reading Microsoft’s dual-screen Courier booklet emerges, isn’t near production

Filed under: Handhelds, Tablet PCs

Microsoft’s dual-screen Courier booklet emerges, isn’t near production originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 22 Sep 2009 19:47:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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