If you are looking for a new lamp that is a bit creepy and looks like it will crawl off your desk on its own, check out this unique and awesome lamp.
This unusual six-legged lamp was made by artype design out of the UK and while it doesn’t actually walk, it looks like it could and that’s good enough for us. Can you imagine this thing walking around your home and lighting whatever area you needed illuminated? That’d be cool.
Of course it would trip you with the cord and kill you, but at least you had a nice lamp for your final days on Earth.
There’s something so neat about robots which are built to replicate the movements of animals and insects. But this biologically-inspired little guy has a gait all his own and makes me want to have one as a pet.
The STAR (Sprawl Tuned Autonomous Robot) was created by David Zarrouk, Andrew Pullin, Nick Kohut and Ronald Fearing at UC Berkeley’s Biomimetic Millisystems Lab. The 3D-printed robot uses six spinny “legs” can adjust its sprawl angle in order to navigate over difficult obstacles, so its little legs can change the amount of ground-clearance they offer. This allows the robot to scurry its way under doorways and other small spaces, and then resume walking normally – if normally means running around like a crazed millipede on speed.
STAR has had two prior versions, with this one getting some mechanical improvements as well as reinforcements to help keep it together after collisions.
Top speed for the STAR.V3 robot is a whopping 5.2 meters-per-second. That means that it can run 43 of its own body lengths every second. This agile robot can also climb over loose rocks, and even right itself if it flips over. Oh, and it can play pool.
Many of you have expressed some, um, concerns about a few of the bots we’ve covered in recent weeks. ATLAS, for instance, is quite frightening, but it’s not yet self-aware. This tiny hexapod, however, is and it’s rather unsettling.
If you want a realistic and creepy spider robot and have a spare $1,350(USD) Robugtix will be happy to sell you this lifelike robotic spider called the T8. Put this in your home and it will likely scare all of the real spiders you have creeping around in your home. They will be lining up to leave your abode.
The robot has a 3D printed outer shell and limbs. Inside it boasts a total of 26 servo motors and that is where it gets its realistic movement.. That and a special inverse kinematic software algorithm you run on a computer to drive it. I’m torn. I want to kill it with fire. But I also want to buy it! Decisions, decisions.
The T8 Spiderbot will be available this September. It’s a good thing it has a single large eye, otherwise you might mistake it for a real spider.
For those of you without such deep pockets, there’s another option in the decidedly less realistic looking, but nonetheless just as creepy-walking Iitsii hexapod, which will ship late August for $250.
Whether they run, jump or swim, there are plenty of robots around to be fearful of. None have quite exacerbated our arachnophobia as much as Robugtix’s T8 octopod, however. The 3D-printed spiderbot not only looks the part, but employs 26 servo motors to drive its unnervingly life-like movement. Bigfoot’s baked-in “Inverse Kinematics Engine” deals with all of the background computations, so you don’t have to be a coding genius to work it. Instead, users send “short and simple commands” to the bot via wireless XBee or any other method you can hook up to its Rx / Tx pins. Expected to ship at the end of September, the T8 is available now for a special pre-order price of $1,350, and you can add $85 to that if you want one of Robugtix’s analog-stick controllers for real-time direction. If that sounds a bit pricey, there’s another option in the much cuter $250 iitsii hexapod, which is predicted to ship late August. Check out the shudder-inducing video of the T8 below, then follow it up with the iitsii demo to help you forget.
Have you heard of the robot maker species that doesn’t need a grand research goal, isn’t motivated by government competitions or corporate interests, and doesn’t necessarily care if their efforts result in profit? Japanese blacksmith Kogoro Kurata and British animatronics expert Matt Denton are live specimens with a simple purpose: make awesome robotic machines.
Those with an even mildly passing interest in robotics technology probably heard about Tokyo-based Suidobashi Heavy Industries’ Kuratas robot last year. Those just a bit robo-geekier have probably seen this month’s blast of coverage on Winchester-based Micromagic Systems’ Mantis robot. Here’s a quick rundown to set the stage (also see specs & videos below):
Kuratas – Japan, Public in July, 2012 Team leader Kogoro Kurata is by trade a blacksmith, and with perhaps a few sponsors and some donated labor, his namesake Kuratas robot appears to be an entirely self-funded undertaking. In development for some 3-4 years, Kurata considers his four-legged rolling mech project an artistic and proof-of-concept exercise, and this exercise can be bought and customized: rolling away in your own Kuratas will only require US $1.3 million (bells & whistles also available at $50,000-$100,000 each). Realistically, it’s probably cheaper to pack up and move to Japan than pay for overseas shipping on this one.
Mantis – U.K., Public in April 2013 Matt Denton is a microelectronics and software guy who, when not making giant robot bugs, makes other robotic stuff for the entertainment industry. Denton’s walking hexapod project took off in 2009, and he considers Mantis a demonstration piece and hopefully a source of inspiration for other robot makers. While it’s managed under the umbrella of his company, Micromagic Systems, the project does receive additional outside funding. At the moment, Mantis is not for sale, but you can arrange appearances, demos, and sponsorships. How about, uhhh… birthday parties?
A Win for Imagination The Kuratas robot is last year’s news, but this month’s announcement of the updated Mantis robot provides an opportunity to remember that not all valuable technological development has to be sober or practical or provide immediate, obvious utility. Sure, perhaps Mr. Kurata in Japan and Mr. Denton in the U.K. are the embodiment of oversized boys with cash enough to build man-sized toys – but check your worldview – that is not a bad thing!
If you’ll forgive here a small slice of cheese, it’s nice to know that these grown men haven’t let the grown-up world and the joyless, withered, humorless souls of business and academia emasculate their imaginations. From nearly opposite sides of the earth these independent robot creators have chased their dream of building badass robots because building badass robots is badass. It’s truly admirable.
While the latest from Kurata’s and Denton’s imaginations are wildly dissimilar in design, origin, and intent, there is also a measure of commonality. This isn’t Kurata’s first giant mech rodeo, and Denton’s been at the hexapod game since long before Mantis went into development; they’re both robotics veterans. On top of that, although released 8 months apart, both robots received common threads of media attention. We saw it last year with Kuratas, and this month Mantis is also getting a taste of the “Wow, that’s an interesting but useless robot, so… moving on.” or the “Gee, what an irresponsible and wasteful thing to create.”
Superficial media blips overlook not only the imagination put into these robot masterpieces, but also give little treatment to the super-advanced and original engineering, computer science, and design prowess that defines these machines not as mere sculpture, but actual factual functioning robots.
Mantis and Kuratas: Also a Win for Pure Science No doubt, Kurata and Denton are the drive behind their respective robots, but their forces of passion have also produced two world-class robotics engineering and software development teams. Sure, Kuratas and Mantis may be indulgent, but while these two executive-level robot dorks pursue their geeky dreams, they’re also producing loads of practical knowledge and providing a venue for other developers to experiment.
Kurata and Denton had their self-driven, beholden-to-none ideas and goals, so they made some hypotheses, got their R&D teams together, did countless tests and trials, built models and stuff, rejiggered this and that, and eventually sent out a press release and uploaded their justifiably viral YouTube videos you see down below.
Please forgive another slice of robogeekery cheese, but it’s worth stating that pursuing something because you love it, seeing if you can get it to work just to see if you can get it to work… well, that’s some beautiful, pure science right there. In robot form.
Go Make Your Own You might have noticed this wasn’t much of a showdown. Really, it’s a vote of encouragement to anyone building iron giants, tinkering with a robot hobby kit, or wiring together cardboard boxes, tubing, and PVC pipe.
So, good luck to Kurata and Denton, we love your work and we’re waiting for the next generations. And hey guys, how about fostering a little international cooperation and goodwill amongst robots: mount Kuratas on the Mantis chassis and have a little cultural exchange?
Last year we heard about a group of students planning to build a ridable hexapod. Now we get to see what such a robot could look like, albeit from a different inventor. This is the Mantis, an all-terrain hexapod built by Matt Denton of Micromagic Systems. The 2 ton robot is powered by a 2.2L diesel engine and can be operated using its on-board controls or remotely via Wi-Fi.
The unit we see here is actually the second version of the robot; Matt said he’s been working on Mantis since 2009 using private funding. I hope his benefactor is a superhero.
That touchscreen control panel looks sweet. Matt should make Mantis Mk.III a hexapod hexacopter. Check out the Mantis website and Facebook page for more info on the robot.
No, the robot invasion hasn’t begun. This six-legged robotic simulator is being used to train rugby players as a part of the management-transition training program at Thales. It is called the Thales Scrum Simulator. It was developed to analyze accidents in order to help avoid spinal cord injuries to players and now it is also used for coaching and match preparations. This beast uses a six-axis motion system which responds to the player’s strength input using sensors on the back side beam and shoulder pads. Each player has his own weaknesses and it adjusts the resulting pressure. The pre-programmed control then makes sure that the reaction is as real as possible which enhances the training, making it more real.
The coach can also control it with a joystick and apply pressure to any area he wants. Right now, As of now this crazy thing is a part of the French national rugby training center in Marcoussis, near Paris.
It may make Rugby players tougher for now, but what happens when it gains sentience? I don’t want to be anywhere near it when that happens.
Mad Lab Industries stays true to its name by frankensteining a hexacopter with a hexapod, driving 12 nails into humanity’s coffin in the process. Meet Hexa², a remote-controlled flying robot spider. Kill it with water!
As you’ll see in the video below, the two parts of Hexa² are currently controlled separately. Watch it fly, walk, walk while flying and bully a plastic container:
Mad Lab Industries are planning to launch a Kickstarter to produce and sell Hexa² kits. So now we’re funding our own doom? Seriously though I want one. I hope they can make one that can walk, fly and swim as a stretch goal.
So, just how many people want to see Stompy, the two-ton hexapod come to smashtastic life? Enough to fund the project in 11 days via its Kickstarter page. The folks at Artisan’s Asylum dropped us a line to let us know that Sir Stompsalot has hit its $65,000 goal as of 7:30 AM this morning, with 18 days left to pledge. That list includes two backers at the $5,000 adopt-a-leg level and nine backers for the $1,000 drive Stompy mark, so unless you’ve got a giant insect of your own, you might want to avoid driving the streets of Somerville, Massachusetts for a while…
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
