This video is Rube Goldberg-eriffic:

All made up out of stuff he had lying around his room!

Dearest Lazyweb: Does anyone know anything more about this guy? We in the Robot Bunker want details!

[Thanks Karen!]

Actually, it’s an exciting innovation for figuring out what’s wrong in spinal column injuries. A team of Leading Researchers™ headed by Moshe Shoham of Haifa’s Technion have developed a propulsion system for a Very Small Robot that carries a camera to detect damage and problems along the patient’s spinal canal.

Working like an untethered endoscope, the teeny machine will send back picture and video to the waiting surgeons in the OR. Once it has been shrunk down to an acceptable, spine-swimming size with the appropriate tiny tech to enable pictures of useful quality, this little device will certainly be the talk of the water cooler.

Plus: FroBorg? CyFrog?

In other news of the self-propelling robot world, those kooky kids over at MIT are expanding on that old Mr. Wizard standby experiment with the frog leg and the electricity (was that Mr. Wizard? Or 3-2-1-Contact?).

From the Pubmedcentral Abstract:

As a demonstratory proof of concept, we designed, built, and characterized a swimming robot actuated by two explanted frog semitendinosus muscles and controlled by an embedded microcontroller.

Now if that is not enough to get your science bloomers in a twist of excitement, nothing is. The best part about this robot is if the muscle ceases to function after a while, you can always fry it up in a tasty beer batter.

Thank you, I’ll be here all night, tip your waitress.

[Thank you Engadget and the Times of India for the Spine Assist story. Thanks PubmedCentral for the FREAKING AWESOME CyFrog (FroBorg?) link.]

. . .to the Eaglebots of Eagleville Elementary Charter School, Eagle Wi! The Eaglebots are a US FIRST Lego League team on their maiden voyage, and Holy Heck Grandma, they made it to STATE!

Special thanks to Deb Crane, their mentor, for sending this in, let us know how they do!

FIRST Lego League is the international junior competition for US FIRST (For Recognition In Science and Technology). Teams sign up to build a robot that completes a set of tasks, which change every year. US FIRST high school teams use IFI controllers, regular hardware, and other kit materials to build their machines, and First Lego League uses - oh you clever guessers you - legos.

The Eaglebots had never built a robot for this competition before, but are whacking their way through the competition!

Next time, better, higher, father, and with MORE GIRLS (yeah yeah I know). . .

Do you have a team that doesn’t suck? Send us their adventures!

Whee! One of our favorite things, Songfight, encourages people to write songs based on a title they provide! The competitors are posted online and the winner gets bragging rights and a deep satisfaction with a job well done.

Last week the title was “Robot Baby!”

Jordan Seavers was the lucky winner. Listen to his masterpiece here!

Yes! Songfight! Robots! More Coffee! W00t!

She’s Such A Geek, edited by Charlie Anders and Annalee Newitz is finally out! We’ve been waiting for this for a while and applaud the whole shebang.

More women need to be in science and there is absolutely no reason we should not be (Oh, well, except for the rampant sexism and that fact that girls grow up constantly being told that being into science and technology not a “girly” thing to do).

She’s Such a Geek even has a blog in which bunches of good writers expound on women in the sciences, among other things.

Having been a woman in sciences for a while now, we here at Suicidebots can go on at length and with great invective on the subject of equality in the workplace/playplace, especially when it comes to technology. Grr. But I’ll refer you to She’s Such A Geek for now, they have a lot to say and they say it well.

[Thanks Violet for breaking the news for us over here]

Audio is NSFW

. . .and the new crop of Beaujolais Nouveau (it’s almost the third Thursday in November kids!), we have this little tidbit from Yahoo News:

In Japan Even Robots Await Taste Of New Beaujolais

We here at the Suicide Bunker really enjoy Beaujolais Noveau with the traditional San Francisco Thanksgiving Crab and Turkey Assimilation Feast (Crab Season! w00t!), and thusly are envious of the Japanese, who, because of their time zone, get first crack at each year’s crop of BN.

Yes, this has very little to do with robots EXCEPT that the article above features the Robot Sommelier who has been making the round of blog and news sites as of late, and whom we have regrettably, failed to cover.

We will be taking our beating with our tea.

[Photo Courtesy Robot Gossip, who should drop us a line because we want to be its friend.]

I don’t know why I’m on this theme of late, but I keep find really good looking art robots.

OK, so they don’t actually move or do anything, but they look a hell of a lot cooler than a Roomba. Sure, most vacuum bots don’t need bright shiny faces in order to suck up the dog hair on your floor (which my Roomba didn’t do. Damn things are worthless, IMO.) But toys sell because of looks. So do IPods. So does sculpture. Give your robot some personality, dammit!

Anyway, Ozzy Loughridge must have the most overstuffed garage in the world, ’cause he makes some really great art robots (and ray-guns and rockets) with the junk that you and I throw out (like that broken vegetable steamer tray, that ends up as a hat or satellite dish in one of his projects.)

Ozzy will be showing his work in SF this weekend, coincidentally. If you’re in SF, check out the Serendipity Fine Arts & Crafts Show at Fort Mason Sat-Sun, Nov 18-19, 10am-7pm. He’s selling some of his trinkets. Just don’t buy that one robot that I’ve got my eye on. I’m trying to sucker him into giving it to me.