Well, it’s been days since our last hamster-related post. (Sorry to disappoint our fans out there, but there’s nothing remotely furry about this one!) Mr. Pete has built a cool remote-controlled hamster ball that rolls and steers without wheels. Shown here on the half-shell, the secret is a counterweight that hangs from the horizontal axis. Lifting that with a motor causes the ball to roll. Tilting the counterweight off-center steers the ball. Clever indeed and a nice realization by Mr. Pete!

Coming to a junkyard near you.

Apparently you can hack Vista through its speech recognition capability.

The exploit scenario would involve the speech recognition feature picking up commands through the microphone such as “copy”, “delete”, ”shutdown”, etc. and acting on them. These commands would be coming from an audio file that is being played through the speakers.

I’m still waiting for the day when if you convince your machine of a logical contradiction, it will start billowing white smoke and then explode.

tip o’ the hubcap to, where else, Robot Wisdom!

V.I.N. CENT
You’d think that script-writers could come up with more original robot names….

I am not speaking of the no doubt highly regarded sports teams that will launch projectiles at each other on Sunday either:

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Yeah it’s an ad, but we expelled liquid over our keyboard when we saw A) the subject matter and B) the fact that Gm is using YouTube as an open source viral marketing tool. Someone in a multinational company grew a brain and hired an interesting ad company.

[Thank you ROBOT 2407!]

Sendai Science Museum @ Daihora, Sendai, Japan

If you are in the Silly Valley area and wish to improve your karma and mold young minds (or really just herd them around from place to place), please consider volunteering for FIRST.

SB has done it a number of times and it makes you really cool and incredibly attractive to the opposite sex.

It also adds three inches to your height, makes you drop ten pounds instantly and causes your synapses to fire at twice the normal rate!

And HEY! If you act now and secure your place, you may have the privilege of spotting the Head Rotor outside the Fortress Of Solitude!

He will most likely be accompanying Team 1031 The John O’Connell High School Boilermakers! (Go ‘Makers!)

I can’t say anything about FIRST without getting into trouble, so here are the details from Elise Engelhardt, the volunteer coordinator:

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Well, Okay, it’s open to the public, and the only secret it really divulges is that the government actually funds some cool projects.


The Unmanned Airborne Vehicle that CRASAR uses.

Dedicated Suicide Bot Regular #36 Kevin Pratt sends us this little tidbit:

For any SB readers in the DC area, NSF is having a research open house on the 5th. We (CRASAR) will be there with with several of our robots for people to look at and drive around. The other exhibitors will be different researchers from around the country that NSF funds. So come learn about some of the cooler science that your government funds.

Here is the press release from NSF

As far as I can tell there is an open exhibit portion (open to public) and a media-only/press conference bit. Both are listed on the press release.

So, Monday Feb. 5th 11-5, NSF headquarters, DC come learn about robots and science.

CRASAR is The Center For Robotic Search And Rescue, an outfit we have been meaning to do a post about for months now. They do crazy serious and wonderful research on disaster management and have helped people from the Gulf Coast to the WTC.

Their Rescue Robot Team page begins with the line “To deploy, contact. . . ”

Any one of us could call in a robot rescue team at any time during a disaster.

That is awesome.

And by awesome, I mean totally sweet.

Cooler than Ninjas, even, and I like me some ninjas.

Everybody love on CRASAR!

Here’s a close-up of the horrifying “hoax device” that brought Boston to a standstill. FEAR THE SCARY LEDZ OF TERROR, PEOPLEZ!

Who are the villains here? The PR hacks (hackers?) who stuck this on a bridge, or the Keystone Kops who overreacted? Note to Homeland Security: if you are this easy to pwn, you are worse than useless. How long before anything with visible circuitry becomes de-facto illegal?

Tip o’ the hubcap to Waxy