Hasta La Gadget!

Most of us don’t have $15,000 to drop on an Anybot, even though having one around would be nice in the event we don’t feel like leaving the house to get some coffee. To help those of us with more humble means, our old friend Johnny Chung Lee (of Wiimote hacking and Kinect dev team fame) has utilized his prodigious DIY talents to create a video chat robot for the relatively paltry sum of $500. Using an iRobot Create ($250), a netbook with Skype ($250), a cable to connect the two, and some control software he wrote himself, Mr. Lee built a digital surrogate on the cheap. Johnny isn’t the first person to so leverage iRobot’s hacking platform, but he added a stand on top of the robot to get the PC closer to human height, attached a fish-eye lens to the webcam for better remote viewing, and even did some re-wiring to allow the netbook to charge via the Create’s base station. The code and how-to instructions are up on his blog, so hit the source link if you’re feeling up to making one yourself. Seems like Johnny Lee’s putting that Google 20 percent time to good use thus far — keep ’em coming. Check the video of this latest creation after the break.

Continue reading Johnny Chung Lee makes DIY telepresence bot out of an iRobot Create and a netbook

Johnny Chung Lee makes DIY telepresence bot out of an iRobot Create and a netbook originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 11 Feb 2011 23:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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At the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, scientists are building RoboEarth, a sort of Wikipedia for robots that will let them independently share instructions for tasks they’ve mastered. Needless to say, Oh shit! More »

This is the Robo-Rainbow by artist Mudlevel, and its purpose is to brighten your day – whether you like it or not:

There’s not much to explain that can’t be gleaned from watching the hypnotic video, a piece of production as beautiful as the robot itself. Powered by a cordless drill, the torque is transferred to a counterweighted arm which lifts six paint spray-cans in an arc.

What looks like an Arduino circuit-board controls the speed of the arm as it traces an arc across the wall of your choosing, and triggers the servos that spray the paint. Even the spray-can mount is ingenious: six cans around a circular hoop that keeps everything lined up as it makes its circle, and at the same time gives the cans space whilst keeping the nozzles close together.

And best of all, the whole rig packs into a bike trailer.

It’s hard to find anything about this that isn’t awesome. The only problem might come from the cops. After all, you may be able to make a quick getaway on your bike, but with a long boom rattling paint-cans behind you, you’re going to be pretty easy to spot.

Robo-Rainbow [Mudlevel / Vimeo via Adafruit Industries and Hack an Day]

See Also:

• Rainbow Apple Sticker: The Ultimate iPad Accessory
• Plastic Flash Filter Kit: Is That a Rainbow in your Pocket …
• Gun Camera Adds Graffiti to Other People's Photos
• Halo: Light-Writing Graffiti Spray-Can
• Paint Whole Buildings with Light Graffiti

Just because the first few tablet textbooks have shipped doesn’t mean that members of Kno’s development team are resting on their laurels. Product testing on the Kno tablet continues — and it looks like Lego is doing the heavy lifting. They’ve put our favorite plastic building blocks to work by constructing a Kno stress tester out of Lego Technic parts. The robot checks both the Kno’s ambient light sensor and the ability of its touchscreen to accurately track the system’s pen swipes and flicks. Though not as intricate as a Lego replica of a 2000+ year old mechanical computer, the robot — with its hypnotic pendulum-like motion — is still a sight to behold. Check the video after the break.

Continue reading Lego bot built to test Kno’s tablet textbook, human overlords watch gleefully (video)

Lego bot built to test Kno’s tablet textbook, human overlords watch gleefully (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Feb 2011 02:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sadists at the German Aerospace Center’s (DLR) Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics are showing off their latest development in anthropomorphic appendages: a robotic hand that can take a beating from a baseball bat and still give you the middle finger (or a thumbs-up, we suppose). Researchers apparently designed the limb to function like only a human hand can, and it seems they’ve done a decent job: it’s got five independently functioning fingers, sports 19 degrees of freedom (one less than the real deal), and can even snap them phalanges — oh no they didn’t! It’s also got the ability to exert a force of 30 newtons from its fingertips. So what makes it so resilient? The robo-hand has a built-in web of 38 tendons, which allow it to adapt its stiffness under different circumstances: a step away, its creators say, from rigid appendages of the past. There’s a video of the hand taking a beating after the jump, but honestly, we’d prefer to see what happens when the hand fights back.

Continue reading German robot hand takes a licking, apparently keeps on ticking (video)

German robot hand takes a licking, apparently keeps on ticking (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 25 Jan 2011 19:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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