Hasta La Gadget!

Yes, you could just run out and buy a vocoder, but they’re kinda pricey and this way is so much more fun! Using an IKEA clock, a fluorescent desk lamp, an HT8950 voice modulator, a condenser microphone and some miscellaneous stuff you’re crafty self is bound to have just laying around, you can make one of your own! Doesn’t look terribly complicated to us, but then, we love things that are terribly complicated. Get to it, sirs — hit the read link for full instructions. Dōmo arigatō.

[Via Make]

Filed under: Robots

DIY Robot Voice Modulator makes it that much easier for you to cover Styx originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 21 Jun 2009 04:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Peaches and cream. Smoked salmon and cream cheese. Robots with guns. All these things are natural partners, combinations sent from heaven to us Earth-bound monkeys to make our sad lives better. Only the last, though, is at the same time both awesome and terrifying.

The video shows a montage of the best and worst of the creations of RoboteX Inc (ignore the powerpoint-style opening. The real action starts just shy of one minute in). First, we see a tiny, bullet firing spider of a robot, able to keep a bead on its target even when bouncing over rocky terrain or walking up stairs (yes, stairs. Take that, Daleks). This is just plain neat.

The next bot, though, is actually rather menacing: a humanoid machine that walks amongst the urban population, “helping” the police. Can you imagine how you’d feel if you saw this thing on your street, a cold, emotionless killing machine bristling with advanced weaponry, its cold metal body empty of anything so warm as a soul or conscience? Maybe like one of the nine soldiers who were mown down by a marauding robot in an ED-209 style massacre in South Africa two years ago.

After that, the video quiets down a little, showing us guns mounted upside-down on wheels, but wait for the denouement at 3:53 minutes in — a robot-drone helicopter with not one but two (2!) automatic rifles on the sides. I gotta get me one of those.

RoboteX Inc. Montage ROBOTS WITH GUNS [YouTube]

See Also:

• Newbies Build Killer Robot; Fortune Fawns
• Robot Cannon Kills 9, Wounds 14
• Robot War Continues

Whether you consider the idea of a house full of robots waiting to do your bidding a dream-come-true or a nightmare, there may be a bigger problem. Researchers now worry that the average human could be overwhelmed by the task of interacting with half-a-dozen or more automatons rolling and walking around the home. The novel solution: A core robot personality that jumps from device to device.

According to a report in New Scientist, researchers at University of Hertfordshire in Hatfield, UK, have created a single robot brain that can jump from robot-to-robot, and even computers scattered throughout the home. The benefit is that homeowners can communicate a task to the robo-butler in one interface and, even if that robot cannot accomplish the task, it can communicate with one that can, and even relay back to the owner that the task has been completed.

Other features the uni-bot-brain brings are the ability to recognize different people (I hate when they mistake me for a chair), respect personal space (no more robots goosing you) and other norms of social interaction (finally, my robots will stop picking their noses).

Trials are currently underway in two story home in the UK. You can see more in the video at New Scientist’s site.

Maker Faire, the largest festival for DIYers, crafters and hackers, happens Saturday and Sunday, May 30 and 31, in San Mateo, California. More than  80,000 people are expected to attend this year to check out what the 600 odd makers have to show, including robotics, music, crafts and food.

Here are some of the highlights:

• Steve Chamberlin’s 8-bit homebrewed CPU.  Nearly 1,253 pieces of wire were individually hand wrapped to create the connection and Chamberlin has built a functional computer based on it. The computer and the CPU will be on display in booth 296 at the main Expo Hall.
• A group of Disney Pixar’s Wall-E movie aficianados will also be showing their handmade Wall-E robots and other characters from the movie. The hobbyists have  created life-size, fully functional replicas from the scratch that are indistinguishable from their namesakes in the movie. The robots will be on display at booth 147 in the Expo Hall.
• There will also be interesting musical instruments on display such as the Yotam Mann’s multitouch musical pad. The musical pad has optical lasers, a webcam and some custom software rigged together to provide an inexpensive way to make some cool music. The contraption will be on display at booth 211 in the Expo Hallo.
• The Bay Area Lego Users Group (BayLUG), which has more than 100 members, will show an entire city constructed of Lego bricks. The exhibit, with individual members responsible for building a single city block, will measure about 2,000 square feet.
• Other cool exhibits include Daniel Fukuba’s DIY Segway. Fukuba, with some help from other Segway enthusiasts, has created a balancing scooter, first with a wooden frame and then an aluminum frame.  “I started with raw, plain PCB boards and soldered on all the components for the speed controller and the logic controller,” says Fukuba. The project took about two months and $4000. And at the Faire, he will be sharing his expertise on how to do it yourself. Fukuba’s DIY balancing scooter will be on display at A1 in the Bike Town pavilion.
• We are also eager to see the two-person self-propelled Ferris Wheel where riders use their arm muscles to shift their weight and turn the wheel. This Ferris Wheel is about 20 feet tall, made of plywood and will be in the Midway M2 area.
• Don’t forget to also check out the CandyFab Project that uses low-cost, open-source fabrication to create 3D sugary confections. A completely new CandyFab machine will be on display at booth number 293 in the Expo Hall cranking out some sweet goodies.

Know of some other cool exhibits or events at the Faire? Post them in the comments below.

And follow @gadgetlab on Twitter, where we’ll be tweeting throughout the weekend with tips on the most interesting, fun and wacky things to see. Stay.

For more on the event, check out O’Reilly’s Maker Faire website.

Photo: Wire wrapped 8-bit CPU/Steve Chamberlin

When machines behave deadly, they are forced to spend eternity tortured by robots like these 10 monstrosities.

SimMan 3G: Intended as an instructional aid for aspiring doctors, SimMan can reproduce human reactions like crying, bleeding, convulsions, and even cardiac arrest. And, as you can see, his intense creepiness is sure to eliminate any students that might not be able to cope. [Link]

Cabbage Patch Spider-Bot: This DIY spider-bot takes the inherently creepy Cabbage Patch Kid and intensifies it a million-fold. [Make via Link]

Gakutensoku: Designed 80 years ago for Emperor Showa (aka Hirohito), this robot was recently restored with a $200,000 computer-controlled pneumatic servo system. It can tilt its head, blink, smile and puff up its chest and cheeks with a system of inflatable rubber tubes. Check out that evil grin at about the 1:40 mark (*shudder*). [Link]

Lucy: Steve Grand’s infamous “Lucy” orangutan robot was an attempt at simulating the mind of a human baby.What he managed to create is an affront to all things good and holy. [Link Image via Streeb-Greebling]

Saya: Humanoid robots interacting with children is just plain creepy—and Saya here isn’t helping much with her appearance. Using 18 motors and some complex programming, Saya can express emotions, speak several different languages, take roll-call and assign tasks to her elementary school students. [Link]

Yume Neko Smile: Intended to provide all of the benefits of owning a real cat without all of the drawbacks of taking care of a living, breathing creature, Yume Neko Smile adds the character-building element of terror that children so desperately need these days. [Link]

Simroid: Like the SimMan, Simroid is designed as a learning aid—although the objective here is to train dentists. It reacts like a human would in most situations—except when sexually abused. Dentists trying that in the real world are often met with swift and severe punishment. [Link]

WD-2: This shape-shifting robot can quickly change faces using an array of servos and microcontrollers. It’s only a matter of time before these things infiltrate human society, becoming whoever they want, whenever they want. [Link]

Geminoid: Designed as a realistic, robotic doppelganger for Hiroshi Ishiguro, a professor at Osaka University, the Geminoid can be remote controlled from anywhere—allowing the professor to, essentially, be in two places at once. [Wired]

CB2: Quite possibly the creepiest robot on this list, Child Robot with Biomimetic Body (CB2) uses complex computers, 197 sensors, eye-cameras and 51 pneumatic “muscles” to learn like a human child. It taught itself to recognize facial expressions, follow the gaze of it’s “mother” and even walk and talk. That’s pretty impressive, but after looking at this video it becomes clear that the only course of action is to take it out back with a shotgun before it learns to kill. [Link]