DJ Sures’ homemade Wall-E was the beginning of his project to bring personal robotics to the masses: thanks to his company, EZ-Robot. The startup sells kits that let you retrofit that Teddy Ruxpin doll in the garage into a fully-functioning killbot. $235 will buy you a wireless controller, ultrasonic distance sensor, wireless tracking camera, three standard servos, two continuous rotation servos, battery pack and software that’ll let you control the bot without having to learn to code. The software also includes vision tracking (facial, motion and color), speech recognition and the whole thing will even integrate with your Roomba — although we’re not sure how far you’ll get if you ask it for a sandwich.
Kåre Halvorsen (aka Zenta) is something of a genius in the robotic arts, as testified by the latest development in his long-running MorpHex project. By adding curved polycarbonate panels to its six feet and upper half, he’s given his creation the ability to curl up into a ball when it gets tired of scuttling. Alas, he hasn’t managed to make it roll around yet, or indeed fly, but the video after the break is still pretty amazing — and almost as hypnotic as that robotic worm we caught doing the limbo.
The robots; they’re walking — and this one’s doing it under its own steam. This passive robotic frame requires no energy input, and is instead powered by its own weight and a gentle slope. The BlueBiped can be adjusted to match the proportions of any user, and researchers plan to use it to assist people who find it difficult to walk and transport unwieldy sports equipment. It already holds the Guinness world record for the longest distance walked by a bi-pedal robot, plodding 15 kilometers (9.32 miles) in a single 13-hour stroll. Those fearing the impending Robopocalypse can at least breathe a sigh of relief that — like some other homocidal robots — stairs still remain out of bounds.
This transparent sensor can stretch to great lengths without getting deformed, all the while sensing pressure. Image: Stanford News
We’re used to tapping away at flat, glass-covered touchscreen devices like smartphones and tablets. A group of Stanford researchers have taken that capacitive touch concept and applied it to a completely new form factor, which could have wide-ranging applications in consumer technology, robotics and beyond.
The team created a transparent, super-stretchy sensor that can be used repeatedly without getting deformed, snapping back into shape after each use. The team hopes that their sensor could be used in medical applications like pressure-sensitive bandages, or even as an outer, skin-like layer to create touch-sensitive limbs or robots. Of course, it could also be used on touchscreen devices and computers.
Through spraying carbon nanotubes onto a layer of silicon and then stretching out the substance a few times, the nanotubes are essentially organized into “springs.” The “springs” can stretch in any direction, and be used to measure the force exerted upon itself over and over again without getting stretched out of shape.
The capacitive touch sensor works like this: There are two conductive parallel plates. When one or both are pressed, the distance between them gets smaller, increasing the capacitance of the sensor. That increase can be quantified and measured. In this case, the two conductive parallel plates facing one another are composed of nanotube coated-silicon, with a middle layer of silicon that stores charge.
The stretchy sensor can detect a wide array of touches, according to Darren Lipomi, a postdoctoral researcher on the team. That means from something as light as a “firm pinch between your thumb and forefinger” to double the pressure of a stamp of an elephant’s meaty foot.
So far the sensor isn’t as sensitive as previous projects the Stanford team has worked on (one of which was so responsive that the pressure exerted from a 20 milligram bluebottle fly carcass was well above what it could detect). However, the researchers can eventually use those previous techniques to calibrate this stretchy capacitive sensor. “We just need to make some modifications to the surface of the electrode so that we can have that same sensitivity,” said Zhenan Bao, associate professor of chemical engineering at Stanford.
Check out the video below to see researchers manipulating, testing and talking about their stretchy, skin-like capacitive sensor.
The Acer ground-bot from Mesa Robotics does way more than your average 4,500-pound semi-autonomous mule. In addition to carrying kit and providing that extra bit of ballistic steel-deflecting cover, it also scans for IEDs using ground-penetrating radar and then autonomously switches into “flail” mode when it finds one — digging up and detonating that critter with barely a break in its 6MPH stride. Did we mention it also acts as a landing pad for small drones? No? That’s because the video after the break says it all. Cue obligatory guitars, game controllers and armchair gung-ho.
Old PR2 can already fold towels, play pool and grab an ice cold beer — really, the Willow Garage robot is just one task of short of mastering the day-to-day activities of your average college student. What’s that? It can get a sandwich, too? Never mind. And this isn’t just any “get me a sandwich” command — the stout white ‘bot uses semantic search to infer possible locations for sandwich, using knowledge of similar objects and environmental models. In the below video, you’ll see PR2 make its way to a refrigerator, in search of sustenance, only to come up empty-clawed. Undaunted, it hops on an elevator and makes its way to a Subway sandwich shop. The joint project from the University of Tokyo and University of Munich was recently shown off at recent robotics conference. No word on when PR2 will be programmed to hold the onions.
This robot is designed to test the iPad 2’s camera app in place of human fingers. Image: Pheromone Labs
There’s no better way to handle a boring, repetitive task than to let a robot do it for you.
Except, of course, if it’s a Lego robot. How much cooler can you get than that? (Answer: Not much.)
That’s exactly what Pheromone Labs did when they were tasked with manually testing the iPad 2’s camera app 10,000-15,000 times. They used a Lego Mindstorms kit to build what essentially boils down to an automated poking machine.
It works using a capacitive touch iPad stylus as a giant finger, driven by a set of motors. The finger pokes the iPad’s on-screen photo capture button over and over in what amounts to an infinite loop (so to speak). The robot setup uses a cardboard box placed on a desk with an iPad 2 secured inside, almost like a little photographic robo-cinema.
It’s a win-win situation. Developers get to work on less mundane tasks, while an unemployed robot gets put to work.
Thank goodness Pheromone Labs didn’t decide to just hire a poor intern to do this job.
The yellow blob-like My Keepon is a small stationary robot that reacts to touch and music. It’s been tickling audiences over the web for years, but in a month from now, you’ll be able to take home one of your own.
We got a chance to check out a final production prototype of My Keepon in real life. It’s no Wall-E or Jonny 5, but if you’re looking for a dancing companion who won’t steal the spotlight, it’s an entertaining addition to your desk or bookshelf.
My Keepon has two modes: music and touch. In music mode, it listens for a rhythm using sophisticated beat detection software. It can either detect strong beats, like hand clapping or drum hits, or listen in a different way to react to more complicated music. The “dancing” is a mix of squirming up and down, leaning side to side and rotating around his base, and the style varies depending on the music being played. You can choose which mode you want it in with one of two buttons toward the bottom of its black base.
The robot has a sensor on its head, a mic in its nose and sensors all around its belly. You can scratch its nose, bop its head, or poke it in the side or the stomach, and it’ll react with a combination of sound and movement.
“He doesn’t like being poked in his butt,” said Marek Michalowski, co-creator of the robot. When My Keepon is poked in the rear, it issues an indignant exclamation and sometimes turns around to “see” who did it.
The robot was responsive to the various stimuli Michalowski and I put it through. It sometimes had trouble finding the beat of more mellow tunes, but a quick song change fixed that (and who wants to rock out to Celine Dion anyway?). The prototype we used was responsive to pokes, prods and hugs when you squeeze both sides of its spherical body, and the little sighs and squeaks, beeps and boops, are completely giggle-inducing. If I had one of these at my desk, rest assured my productivity level would go way down (and my coworkers might hate me). Unfortunately, like many toys there is a degree of novelty to My Keepon that could get worn after a handful of uses and leave it dusty and forlorn on a bookshelf.
Though the robot is cute (and fun!), it’s also dancing for a good cause. Michalowski helped develop the $30,000 original Keepon used to study social interaction with autistic children. A portion of proceeds from the My Keepon toy go back toward putting more research Keepons in the hands of clinics working with autism.
As the consumer version of the robot won’t run you $30,000, it’s obviously a bit of a downgrade. For instance, the research version of the robot is made of silicon rubber; the consumer My Keepon is made of a similar, cheaper material able to be mass-produced. The consumer version also lacks a camera, which the research version includes for tele-operational purposes.
The My Keepon robot will be available for purchase in late October for less than $50.
I’m all about little robots. That is to say, any robot that is small enough that I know for a fact I won’t lose to in a fight. (You know, in case the whole Skynet thing happens.) As long as the robots are small, and as long as they do some neat tricks, I’m pretty […]
When Arduino unveiled a boatload of new products on Friday, we could have taken the easy route, posted the PR and called it a day. But, since the crew happened to be in town for Maker Faire, with a few folks from Atmel (makers of the AVR chip at the heart of the open source MCU) in tow, we figured why not go straight to the source. Arduino founder Massimo Banzi gave us a look at the company’s latest offerings: the ARM-powered Arduino Due, the low-cost Arduino Leonardo, and aptly-named Arduino WiFi, as well as a peek at some of the group’s upcoming plans. Keep on reading after the break for the juicy details.
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