Hasta La Gadget!

While Boston Dynamics‘ Cheetah has already premiered, speeding along on its robot-friendly treadmill, we’ve now got a better glimpse at how the similarly DARPA-funded human-hunting obstacle-scaling Atlas fares, courtesy of its ancestor. That’s the Pet-Proto you can see in the video below, balancing and leaping across narrow terrain, conducting its own “autonomous decision-making” and keeping upright — all very important points for DARPA’s own Robotics Challenge, a competition where winners will gain access to their very own modified version of the Atlas for future disaster response tests. Watch the Pet-Proto gradually advance towards camera right after the break. And we’ll sleep with one eye open.

Continue reading DARPA’s Pet-Proto robot climbs, balances, jumps, comes to get you

Filed under: Robots, Alt

DARPA’s Pet-Proto robot climbs, balances, jumps, comes to get you originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 25 Oct 2012 12:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Here’s another extremely cool offshoot of the Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute. Platypus LLC build autonomous robotic airboats that can be deployed for a wide range of usages including environmental data and monitoring hard-to-reach spots after natural disasters like flooding. The hull of the boat looks a good deal like a boogie board, built from polyurethane. On top, you’ll find a propulsion fan assembly, just behind a hard plastic electronics compartment that houses internals like the Arduino board. That microcontroller communicates via Bluetooth with a smartphone that sits in the front of of the boat, safely cocooned inside an Otterbox case.

The models we saw this week were carrying Nexus S handsets — relatively cheap solutions bought second-hand off of eBay. Just about any Android phone should do the trick, but in the case of this project, where phones can get wrenched loose or just outright pilfered, cheaper is certainly better. Platypus’ proprietary app helps control the boat autonomously, using the handset’s camera to provide situational awareness. Sensors mounted on the boat, meanwhile, offer up information on oxygen and PH levels, temperature and more.

Continue reading Platypus airboats have a Nexus S for a brain, we go eyes-on (video)

Filed under: Cellphones, Robots, Science

Platypus airboats have a Nexus S for a brain, we go eyes-on (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 24 Oct 2012 15:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s an Arduino — you know, for kids. Or, as BirdBrain Technologies’ chief robot design Tom Lauwers put it, a “pre-Arduino.” It’s never too early to get kids into robot building — or so goes the thought process behind this nectar-loving kit. At its center is a custom controller that can be used to manipulate a slew of different sensors, motors and lights, a number of which are included in the box. Getting started is extremely simple — don’t believe us? Check the video after the break, in which Lauwers connects two wires to get the whole process underway.

The kit’s also reasonably priced at $199 a piece. On top of the controller, you get a handful of LEDs, two vibration motors, four servos and light, temperature, distance and sound sensors. The kits are currently available through the company’s site (click on that source link). Lauwers tells us that his company (which you may remember from last year’s MakerFaire NYC) is working on a slightly more affordable option priced at around $130, which scales back a bit on the in-box components.

Check out a conversation with Lauwers — and a pretty awesome cardboard dragon — below.

Continue reading Hummingbird is a ‘pre-Arduino’ for kids (video)

Filed under: Robots

Hummingbird is a ‘pre-Arduino’ for kids (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 24 Oct 2012 12:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you told me yesterday that today there would be a robot that balances on a single ball and can locomote itself around the room on said ball, I’d say you were a crazy person. Well, you’re not a crazy person. Bossa Nova Robotics, makers of the Penbo line of robotic toys, has just launched the mObi [sic], a robot that “is based on technology that allows the robot to balance on a ball and move seamlessly with a single point of contact on the ground, enabling natural omni-directional movement, slender design profiles and superior navigation in human environments.”

The robot, shown here, balances on a single ball. Bossa Nova worked with engineers at Carnegie Mellon University to get this girl rolling and apparently it will be available as a research platform first and then as an actual product in around 2013.

We’re trying to get a bit more information, but until then just imagine how fun it would be to treat this robot like a self-righting punching bag clown and then, when it got angry enough, it would lash out with razor-sharp claws.

It’s the sort of ceremony that’s so magical it can only occur on even-numbered years. Inventors, educators, entertainers, college students and media folk gathered at the Carnegie Science Center in Pittsburgh, PA tonight for the 2012 inductions to the Robot Hall of Fame, a Carnegie Mellon-sponsored event created to celebrate the best of our mechanical betters.

This year, the field included four categories, judged by both a jury of 107 writers, designs, entrepreneurs and academics and the public at large, each faction constituting half the voting total. The show kicked off, however, with the induction of 2010 winners, the Spirit and Opportunity Mars rovers, the da Vinci Surgical System, iRobot’s Roomba, the Terminator and Huey, Dewey and Louie, a trio of robots from 1971’s Silent Running.

The first ‘bot to secure its spot in the class of 2012, was the programmable humaoid Nao, from Aldebaran Robotics, which beat out the iRobot Create and Vex Robotics Design System in the Educational category. The PackBot military robot from iRobot took the Industrial and Service category, beating out the Kiva Mobile Robotic Fulfillment System and Woods Hole Oceanographic’s Jason. Boston Dynamic’s Big Dog ran over some stiff competition in the form of Willow Garage’s PR2 and NASA’s Robonaut to win the Research title. And WALL-E triumphed over doppelganger Johnny Five and the Jetsons‘ Rosie in the Entertainment category. Relive the festivities in four minutes after the break.

Continue reading Robot Hall of Fame inducts Big Dog, PackBot, Nao and WALL-E (video)

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Robot Hall of Fame inducts Big Dog, PackBot, Nao and WALL-E (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 23 Oct 2012 23:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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