Hasta La Gadget!

We’re no stranger to robot drummers – or robot musicians for that matter – but StickBoy stands out for a couple of reasons. Make that four reasons. The rock and roll robot makes up for its seemingly immobile hips by having four arms.

Frank Barnes of Robocross built StickBoy back in 2007. The robot’s arms, two legs and awesome metal mohawk head are powered by compressed air. He uses a 14-piece Pearl drum set with double bass pedals. According to the Robocross website, StickBoy can rock out to 8 songs, including AC/DC’s TNT, Rage Against the Machine’s Bullet in the Head and the song used below, the Ramones’ Blitzkrieg Bop.

Was that punk, metal or robot rock?

[Robocross via You Bent My Wookie]

A stroke can cause permanent paralysis even if a patient’s cognitive functions recover. But those thoughts, if a revolutionary new robotic orthotic succeeds, could be all it takes to help stroke victims’ bodies recover a greater degree of limb function. More »

Typically, when I hear about a project over on the crowdsourced funding website Kickstarter, we’re talking about some sort of iPhone accessory or game. A project is up on Kickstarter right now that Arthur C. Clarke would really appreciate. The project is from a company called the LiftPort Group and is to fund an experiment that will help the company on its path to building a space elevator on the moon.

The company is seeking $8000 to conduct an experiment where they will launch a robot using a 2 km long tether into the atmosphere. The robot would climb that tether and break the previous world record set by the company of roughly a quarter mile. The company has so far raised over $19,600 and still has 16 days to go.

With each step above the $8000 the company needed, it has “stretch goals” that will see improvements made on its original experiment including more sensors and the ability to go higher into the sky. LiftPort Founder Michael Laine hopes that the experiment will eventually culminate with a $3 million feasibility study on the possibility of building a space elevator on the moon. The company wants to build a space elevator that will carry cargo from the surface of the moon to a point where spacecraft from Earth could rendezvous with it.

The total cost for the space elevator is estimated to be $800 million, which might be a bit more than you could raise on Kickstarter.

[via Forbes]

A paper tiger might have a bark that’s worse than its bite, but that proverb might not be valid once you’ve seen the Mechanical Paper Robot. The brainchild of artist / genius Kikousya, it’s entirely constructed from dead trees, a few rubber bands and some dowel. We suggest you watch the amazing video after the break and, if you’re looking to build your own, head down to the source link for the instructions. After all, given the cost of those robotic bulls, scary babies and giant mecha, Skynet’s gonna need some wallet-friendly foot-soldiers for the Robopocalypse.

Continue reading Robot made from paper spells doom for the trees in the Robopocalypse (video)

Filed under: Robots, Alt

Robot made from paper spells doom for the trees in the Robopocalypse (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 27 Aug 2012 20:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink The Verge, Robots Dreams  |  MPM  | Email this | Comments

The NASA Curiosity rover is currently scouring the surface of Mars, looking for evidence that the planet could have one time supported life. While looking at the surface is currently the best we can do to find out more about the Red Planet, it may not be long before we have robots that can actually go underground to look for more clues there. Discovery News reports that recently discovered “skylights” – sinkholes which lead to caverns and inactive lava tubes beneath the surface of Mars – have scientists thinking of ways we can get down there and have a look around.

Naturally, being underground would offer a number of protections for the samples NASA hopes to obtain. The surface of Mars is constantly fried with radiation from our Sun, bombarded with meteorites, and subject to greatly varying temperatures as day shifts to night and vice versa. These underground caverns don’t suffer as much from those issues, so samples collected there could give scientists a better idea of the history of Mars than samples collected on the surface can.

“You just couldn’t get better samples than what can be retrieved from these depths,” Carnegie Mellon University robotics researcher William “Red” Whittaker tells Discovery News. Robots that can descend the depths of these skylights and examine below the surface aren’t some far-off fantasy either, as Whittaker’s firm Astrobotic Technology has been given a $500,000 grant from NASA to develop a prototype of a robot that could do such a thing. Astrobotic is currently considering a number of different of robots for the task, ranging from one that can rappel down the side of the skylight to one that is lowered down through the hole by a suspension line.

There are also these skylights on the moon, and Whittaker says that Astrobotic may be testing these robots there within the next three years. That’s certainly an exciting prospect, especially if going underground can give us a better idea of the evolution of Mars. Sadly, it sounds like we have a number of years to wait before these robots land on Mars, but in the meantime, we have the findings of Curiosity to look forward to. Be sure to have a look at our story timeline below for more posts on the Curiosity rover and its exploits on the surface of Mars!

[Image via HiRISE]

Robots may one day head into Mars underground is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.