Hasta La Gadget!

Will robots be able to rule the world that we know one day? Perhaps, or perhaps not, but what we do know is this – the world of robotics has certainly advanced by a fair bit for humanity to arrive at where it is today. Apparently, at a presentation at this week’s IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation in Germany, there was a self-assembling printed robot being put on show, where this printed robot is smart enough to assemble itself by relying on the “shape memory” characteristics of the polymers in its construction. Hmmm, sounds suspiciously like the brains behind it were inspired by the Transformers, no? Of course, there is no Allspark to bring this bit of silicone and circuitry to life, and neither is magic involved, just good old technology.

The end result would be something that starts off as flat, where throwing in a bit of human intervention, you are able to see both battery and motor work together to have it end up in a shape which is capable of movement ala inchworm, as it goes about bending and straightening its body. Researchers of this robot, Samuel Felton, Michael Thomas and Robert Wood from Harvard and Cagdas Onal and Daniela Rus from MIT, claimed that this unique robot was able to to fold itself “into its functional form with fold angle deviations within six degrees”. Could we eventually see a transforming breath analysis robot soon?

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Japanese Robots Used To Harshly Comment On Your Stinky Breath, Feet, RoboBee The Flying Robot Insect,

If you and your indolent ass ever wished that there was a gadget that could insert your Xbox 360′s discs for you, this contraption is not the answer. Not only because it’s not really practical, but because you’ll never be able to build it in the first place.

This impressive, but silly disc changer system was made by a mad genius who calls himself Zwenkka. He made it out of about 3,000 parts, including three LEGO Mindstorms NXT micro-computers, seven NXT servos, an R/C motor and a light sensor. The system is operated via a mobile app. Zwenkka selects a disc by entering a number between 1 and 32 (because the tray holds 32 discs). His phone relays the selected disc via Bluetooth and the robot does the rest – slowly. It takes 42 seconds to change a disc.

I wonder how it remembers the location of the open slot on the tray when it has to return a disc. I also wonder if it can be tweaked so it delivers food to one’s mouth instead. Head to Palikkatakomo for more on the Xbox 360 disc changer.

[via Gamefreaks]

Ian Danforth has created a soon-to-be-cuddly robot called The Fenn. The robot is based on a character from a fictional story of an alien planet that humans make contact with. It is made especially for kids.

When the robot is completed, it will have some soft skin and sensors going down its back, so kids can pet it. When they do, LEDs will go off and if they pet it softly, Fenn will respond. Pet it too hard and Fenn will run away,  just like a real animal.

This ‘bot has a front facing camera, gyroscope, touch sensors and other hardware that makes for a very kid-friendly experience. Ian is getting it ready for Maker Faire 2013. I can’t wait to see the finished product.

[via Damn Geeky]

We’ve seen Emotiv’s Epoc headset control cars and trapeze acts, but now a small posse of students at Columbia University is teaching it how to control a robotic arm. The appendage, aptly named ARM for Assistive Robotic Manipulator, was envisioned as a wheelchair attachment to help the disabled. According to the team, the goal was to keep costs in the neighborhood of $5,000 since insurance outfits Medicare and Medicaid won’t foot a bill for assistive tech that’s much more than $10,000. To keep costs low, the crew built the limb from laser cut wood, and managed to keep the final price tag at $3,200. Since picking up EEG signals and interpreting them accurately can be tricky, the group says it settled on monitoring EMG waves, which are triggered by muscle movements, for additional reliability.

Lifting your eyebrows makes the device open its grip, clenching your teeth shuts it and moving your lips to the left and right twists the claw, while other motions are currently handled by using a PlayStation 2 controller. In the lab, the contraption has seven degrees of freedom, but it was reduced to five when we took it for a spin. It was hit or miss when this editor put the headgear on, between making sure facial gestures were spot on and the equipment’s attempts to pick up clear signals.

Filed under: Robots, Alt

Comments

TitanArm already took home silver in a competition for senior projects at the University of Pennsylvania, and now the team behind it is visiting Orlando to compete in the Intel-sponsored Cornell Cup for embedded design. We stopped by the showroom and snagged a few minutes with the crew to take a look at their creation: an 18-pound, untethered, self-powered exoskeleton arm constructed for less than $2,000.

To wield the contraption, users attach the cable-driven mechanical appendage to themselves with straps from a military-grade hiking backpack, and guide it with a thumbstick on a nunchuck-like controller. If a load needs to be held in place, the wearer can jab a button on the hand-held control to apply a brake. A Beagle Bone drives the logic for the setup, and it can stream data such as range of motion wirelessly to a computer. As for battery-life, they group says the upper-body suit has previously squeezed out over 24 hours of use without having to recharge.

Filed under: Robots, Alt

Comments