The Fukushima Daiichi meltdown and other recent disasters like Deepwater Horizon highlight a very real need for robotic first responders that can operate in inhospitable environments. In response, DARPA recently issued a Robotics Challenge addressing the issue. Here’s the design that Carnegie Mellon University’s National Robotics Engineering Center (CMU NREC) hopes will take home the challenge’s $2 million purse—and save lives some day. More »
The latest contraption to separate the cookies and cream from Oreo cookies is a robot named HERB, Carnegie Mellon’s butler ‘bot. He was built for performing household tasks, and what task could be more important than separating Oreo cookies?
HERB prefers the cream over the cookie, even though he’s a robot. Watch HERB work his magic on some Oreos in the latest Oreo Separator video. The team at Carnegie Mellon had HERB try a few different methods before they found the right way to do it.
At one point he can be seen stabbing the cookies with a kitchen knife. I’m glad that didn’t work – the idea of a robot with a razor sharp knife doesn’t sit well with me. Eventually they settled for the grab and twist method. I love how he pronounces the word Oreo. It sounds a bit like the HAL 9000.
[via Geekosystem]
Just as we share all sorts of tidbits about our lives over the web, The scientists over at RoboEarth have created an open source network that robots can use to share and reuse knowledge amongst themselves. Called Rapyuta, think of it as an Facebook for robots.
Smarter robots with higher computational abilities require more memory and hardware. That’s just Robotics 101. RoboEarth offers to take all of that heavy-duty computation and upload it into the cloud, where any robot might be able to interface with it at any time to learn from other robots how to deal with any given situation. The catalog of behaviors can make dumb robots smarter without a lot of on-board computing.
Rapyuta, which was publicly released last month, will eventually hold an ocean of information robots can access. They write:
So yes, soon two of these mechanical monstrosities will be able to communicate with each other, learn from prior experience, and effectively work together to kill you. Or complete all of your household chores, depending upon which futuristic scenario you’re thinking about here.
Sci-fi fans will note that this all sounds pretty ominous and the company isn’t doing us any favors. If they want to assure us that Rapyuta won’t become a precursor to a real-life Skynet, they might at the very least stop with the cultural touchstones. Never mind that the robots in the flying island Laputa (a few letters away from Rapyuta) from the Japanese animated feature Castle in the Sky threaten to annihilate human civilization, but RoboEarth calls the robots that interface with Rapyuta as Hardware Abstraction Layers AKA HALs.
Maybe a robopocalypse is in the offing after all.
Credit: Yoshikazu Tsuno/AFP/Getty Images
Hitachi has revealed a tiny single-seat vehicle called Ropits; that’s Robot for Personal Intelligent Transport System. Ropit is a robot vehicle that can pick up and drop off passengers independently. Just punch in the destination and it will take you there. The vehicle is meant to travel on sidewalks and Hitachi had demonstrated its capability in the city of Tsukuba today. There will be more tests to come. (more…)
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Flying Cars Better Off With Robot Chauffeurs?, PhotoBot robotic camera takes pictures on its own,
We’re just a few days away from Expand, and all of us are insanely excited about the agenda we have lined up. To get you pumped for our Sunday morning session with Chris Anderson (CEO, 3D Robotics and former editor-in-chief, Wired), Steve Cousins (CEO, Willow Garage) and Marc Raibert (President & Chief Robot Lover, Boston Dynamics) we have a little thought experiment for you.
Read on to take our short and sweet robotics poll…
Filed under: Announcements, Meta
Starbucks baristas will write your name on the side of your coffee cup, but that’s no where near the level of personalization the Barista Bot is capable of. After snapping your portrait with a webcam, it uses a robotic arm to then draw your face in the milk foam atop your latte. That’s overkill in the best way possible. More »
Creating something out of LEGOs is an art I personally can’t ever do as I don’t have that good of an imagination. But thanks to the Internet, we’ve seen people use LEGOs to build an X-Wing, a tiny mac and they’ve even been used in mobile accessories. All of those examples of LEGO use are all well and good, but if there’s something we need in our life immediately, it’s a LEGO machine that can fold and throw paper airplanes.
The LEGO machine featured in the video above was created by NXTLOG user hknssn13 which uses 2 NXT micro controller bricks, 5 servos, 10 DC motors, pneumatics, infrared, and additional sensors as well as very steady fingers to complete the machine. At the end of the video, we see the machine fling the plane, although we don’t see how well it does in flight. My guess is that it does exceptionally well and is probably good enough to prop a small LEGO person on top of it to give them a ride of their lives.
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: NASA reveals mission to study Mars’ core, GUSS, the Robot Mule Helps Marines Haul Loads,
I’m sure that this is just a small taste of what we can expect from future robot competitions, just with less killing of humans. This competition is designed to attract more young students to the field of robotics and for today at least, it looks pretty fun. Let’s all enjoy it while we’re still alive.
The annual First Robotics Competition is being held at San Diego’s Valley View Casino Center aka Sports Arena. The seventh annual competition will have 60 teams. They will compete using 100+ pound robots in a game where they score points by throwing frisbees into a slot in the wall and then climb metal pyramids.
The match starts with a 15-second period where robots operate independently. Each frisbee scored is worth additional points. For the remainder of the two-minute match, drivers control the robots remotely and try to score as many points as possible. Then they try to climb a pyramid. The higher up they get, the more points they get.
The championship will be held in St. Louis on April 24 to 27 and there are $16 million(USD) in scholarships for competitors to win.
[via kpbs]
Nabisco’s recent Oreo videos have been gaining a good amount of attention as they feature people who are passionate enough to create methods of separating the cookie and cream filling. We first met a man who built a machine which completely removed the cream filling and then met two people who invented a machine that allowed both cookie & cream lovers to co-exist. Today, we meet HERB.
Robotic researchers from Carnegie Mellon University built HERB, who is a Household-Exploring Robotic Butler, originally to assist people with their household duties, which we’re hoping one day includes doing the laundry and cooking up some Steak ‘Ems. HERB’s duties shifted a tad recently in order to help separate Oreo cookies, which HERB says, “Apparently, that is a big deal for humans.”
HERB attempts to separate an Oreo cookie a number of times, the majority of the time resulted in a crumbled Oreo. Ultimately, HERB not only learned how to successfully separate an Oreo cookie, but he also used additional tools that helped completely remove the cream to prepare it for human consumption.
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Compressorhead Is A Three-Robot Band That Can Play Better Than You, Man Vs. Machine In Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots Cage Match,
In what is turning out to be one of the most entertaining marketing stunts of the past few years, Nabisco’s Cookie vs. Creme challenge is attracting all kinds of talented minds from across the country. Including robotic researchers from Carnegie Mellon University who’ve even drafted their advanced bot HERB into Oreo separating service. More »
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.
