Hasta La Gadget!

On January 25, 1921, the word “robot” was introduced to the world in Karel Capek’s play R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots). The play premiered in Prague in the Czech language, but it later came to New York in 1922 in English, and the term robot took off. 

Although Capek used the introduced the word in his play, he gives the actual credit to his brother, Josef Capek. The word stems from the Czech word robota meaning forced labor, drudgery, and servitude. In the play, Capek’s robots, which resemble humans and can think for themselves (so, today, they’d probably be called androids?), were created as a means of cheap labor. Eventualy, they rise up, kill all of the humans, and take over the world–that idea also took off: The Terminator, I, Robot, Transformers, etc.

Well, robotics have definitely come a long way since 1921 (and the fear that robots will take over the world has probably increased). We now have the ASIMO, BigDog, the Kawada HRPs, Roomba, and Pleo, and it just wouldn’t be the same if we didn’t call them “robots.”

Happy 90th Birthday, Robot!

Over at the Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering near Boston, Massachusetts, the students know what makes a worthwhile project. The AutoFrost is a robot which has one delicious purpose: frosting cakes.

The human operator enters some basic cake-stats, like size and color, and then hits the splendidly-worded go-button: “I’m ready to design an amazing cake”. He is then dropped into a paint program with a circa-1990 interface, where the designing is done. This custom-coded app then controls the AutoFrost ‘bot itself.

A pair of stepper motors and threaded rods move both the icing nozzle and the cake. They are controlled by two Arduinos and stepper motors. The frosting plunger is manually positioned at the right height over the tasty cake and the frosting is squeezed out using a servo motor on a rack and pinion system.

There’s still a little work to be done (apart from slicing and eating the cake) – to change colors, a human has to swap on the new frosting before the AutoFrost can resume – but so what? It’s a frikkin’ robot that decorates cakes. If you watch the video all the way through you’ll see that the icing on the cake, as it were, is when the ‘bot finishes up its task by crossing the “t” and dotting the “i”, just like the operator did when when designing the cake.

Future plans include different nozzle sizes, auto cake-size sensing, and more than a few brisk walks to combat calories gained in the name of research.

AutoFrost Cake Decorator [Olin via Oh Gizmo]

See Also:

• Nikon D700 Birthday Cake
• Hilarious Thumb-Drive Cake Mistake
• MacBook Cake is Lighter Than Air
• Katamari Wedding Cake Is a Great Ball of Geekery

LAS VEGAS — This weekend, tech journalist Evan Ackerman took a step into science-fiction, literally. At CES 2011, Evan became the first person in the US to try on a pair of cyber-trousers from the Japanese company Cyberdyne. Cyberdyne, I don’t need to remind you, shares a name with the fictional company that built the Terminators.

The Sci-Fi references continue: The exoskeleton is named HAL, or Hybrid Assistive Limb, and is controlled by thought. The suit is strapped to the waist and legs and sensors monitor electrical signals sent to the legs from the brain. Just as we don’t have to consciously think about taking a step, Evan didn’t have to consciously control the HAL. It just works. “Once I figured out how to stop trying to walk in the suit and just let the suit walk for me, the experience was almost transparent,” he said.

HAL is powered by small motors that assist the user. The military is, of course, interested, but medicine is another important use. Evan was using the suit on its lowest power-level (level one), and even then felt that it did all the work in taking him up a small flight of stairs. The suit goes up to level four, which could carry the weak and lame, or let people with injuries get around on their own feet.

Cyberdine also has a full body version, like the power-lifter in the movie Aliens, and the suits are in daily use in Japanese hospitals, leased for around $1700 per month. They are also finding their way into medical institutions around the world.

Cyberdine plans a rugged, weather-resistant version to allow injured or disabled people to do outdoor activities, and a new version coming later this year will have smaller and lighter batteries – the current model weighs around 10kg.

Robot Suit HAL Demo at CES 2011 [IEEE Spectrum. Thanks, Erico!]

See Also:

• Lightweight Exoskeleton Gives Paraplegics New Legs
• MIT Exoskeleton: A Partial Success
• Real Life Iron-Man Suit for Soldiers

Can’t be there in person? Why not spend Vgo, the creepy telepresence robot scooter thing? Vgo is essentially a little remote control bipedal scooter, with a teleconferencing monitor where his weird, misshapen head ought to be.

When you can’t be at the office, you can still see, talk, hear, and move around the place with Vgo. The device is designed by a company called Vgo Communication. It’s fully remote controlled, has high quality audio and video, which can be controlled from a PC. It also has WiFi, security controls, and sensors, so you don’t bump into things while you’re Vgoing.

There was a Vgo cruising the North Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center yesterday, during the first day of CES, and I have to say, it seems like its owners were having a good time. Check out video of Mr. Go, after the jump.