It has come to our attention that the fine folks at Shifz and Monochrom, the people with the courage to discuss the role of cocktail robotics as an index for the integration of technological innovations into the human Lebenswelt, have set up a drive to get an contigent over to Robogames in June to compete in the cocktail robot competition.
Please give generously to their efforts so that we may crush them.
Jason Dante Bardis sends us this:
Steel Steam Head Tokima Digirobo Bracelet
“It’s Robot O’Clock!”
From the Robot Fighting League Delphi Forum
You had me at “modified bobcat excavator”:
The Scorpion is from Autonomous Solutions, Inc of Utah. It is made from a modified Bobcat excavator with ASI’s command and control brains.
[via Robot Gossip]
A great run of interesting and informative posts here the last few days. Sorry about that! To remedy the situation, we bring you this report (from the ever-reliable UK tabloids) about a a bloke who has sex with cars.
Chris said: “It’s all about imagination and creativity. There’s more to car love than exhaust pipes. Stroking the body panels and delicate touching makes excellent foreplay.”
The Illustrious Chris Anderson blogged about this project yesterday. We here in the Robunker were idly wondering why this entry has gotten so much blog play, and we hit upon a solution: the very phrase “Lego Autopilot” just sets off our reptilian robotic hindbrain in ways that mere-smear Yahoo News results about industrial mechatronics do not.
We also figured being Chris Anderson helps too.
So say it with me, roll it around slowly on your tongue until the ecstasy hits:
Lego. Autopilot.
Mmmm, Lego Autopilot.
Yet another reason why you should all go out and buy as many Lego Mindstorm kits as possible before they discontinue support again.
Holy heck kids, we’ve reached the 21st Century.
There is now a Combat Robot Builder’s Wiki live and on the scene.
Share build stories, issues, read about the rules, and otherwise learn everything you ever wanted to know about combat robots.
Combat robots?
Combat robots you say? People still do that? I thought that was only on TV?
Yes. Yes they do still do that:
Among other things.
I cannot believe that we were not more vigilant and missed National Engineer’s Week!
From the incomparable Telstar Logistics:
So, in belated appreciation of all the things that engineers do for us (like make the machinations of our eventual world domination possible), give a nod and a squeeze to any nearby engineer, be they civil, mechanical, structural, acoustical, whatever.
(Hey has anyone seen The Head Rotor lately? I swear he was around here somewhere, maybe under this pile of stuff. . .)
. . it probably listens to this show. . .
KROB”s blog looks appalling in Firefox but the links are perfectly serviceable.
If there is any question we here at Suicidebots.com get asked the most often, it would have to be “What the hell are you doing with that, get that thing away from me!”
The second most-asked question, is, of course, “When do I get my pleasure bot?”.
Aside from scolding the asker for not doing their homework, we gently point them towards things like this super nifty SXSW panel, “Sex and Computational Technology”.
Computer technology has moved off the desktop and into homes, cars, pockets, and urban streets, in support of human relationships casual or intimate. Sex is an important facet of human experience, something that intertwines with intimacy, domesticity, mental health, play, and many other areas of our lives. Sex + tech is more than lots o’ internet porn. Let’s talk about teledildonics, virtuality, intimate interfaces, assistive technologies, and more.
Yes, it’s *is* more like a precursor to the possibility of a palpable pleasure bot, but would we have the space program without the first gentle twitterings of Sputnik? I ask you.
This panel features leading lights of the sex and tech revolution: Amanda Williams of the University of California at Irvine; Violet Blue, Blogger, Podcaster, Open Source Sex; Johanna Brewer of the University of California at Irvine; Kyle Machulis Engineer, Nonpolynomial Labs; Cory Silverberg Author & Educator, Come As You Are & About.com.
Give the podcast a listen then come back here and ask us again why you don’t have a pleasurebot yet.
Go On. We dare you.
This man draws robots. One every day. Hence, Daily Robot. Simple.
Like robot haiku, a need that has now been filled.
[Thank you Scott Beale!]
No it’s not the world’s tiniest assembler of tobiko nigiri (yum), it’s Microhand!
Microhand is being developed by the UCLA Micro Electro-Mechanical Systems program (oo talk dirty to me), part of the UCLA Engineering department. The leader of the project is Dr. Chang-Jin (CJ) Kim, who says: “It is the world’s smallest robotic hand, and [it] could be used to perform microsurgery.”.
From Technology Review:
The “microhand” measures one millimeter across when closed into a fist. It consists of four “fingers,” each of which is made from six silicon wafers, with polymer balloons doing the work of “muscles” at the wafers’ joints.
Each balloon is connected with narrow channels through which air is pumped in or out. When a balloon is inflated, the distance between two joints decreases, and the finger flexes inward. Upon deflation, the fingers relax. And with selective inflation and deflation, researchers are able to manipulate the fingers into clasping or releasing an object.
This mechanism is just perfectly elegant. The economy of motion, the gas-driven design, and doesn’t it just make you want to PINCH ITS LIL TENTACLES????
Okay maybe that’s just me, but for all those who like tentacle pinching AND hardcore micro electro-mechanical concept action, see the groovy delights at the MEMS Research page.
ROBOT OF THE WEEK
With all the dubious rights and privileges that entails.
[Via The Raw Feed]
South Korea To Detail Robot Etiquette
[snnnrrrrkkkkk]
S.Korea Works On Ethical Code For Righteous Robots
HahahahahahaAaaahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaahahahahaaahaha
hahhoohooWHOOPPHEEHEEEHEEHEEEHEEHEEHEEEHEEEHAAAAHHAAAA
AHAAAAHHAAAAAAAHHAAAAAAAAAHAHAAHAAAAHAAAHAAAHAAHA. . .
This article in New Scientist is actually somewhat sensible.
Over to you, Mr. Robotics. . .
-SB, abandoning, for the moment, all pretenses of journalistic objectivity, just this once.
Mr. Robotics and I have just returned from a brief stint at the TED conference down in Monterey, where we were wrangling Chapek and El Espanol Borracho for throngs of eager TEDgoers at the opening night party.
Thanks to Steve Jurvetson who took the picture!
The partygoers gamely took us up on our entreaty to “Push our buttons” and were rewarded with a three foot flame over a delightful concoction of coffee, milk, sugar, Kahlua and 151 proof rum. That is, the concoctions were delightful until we ran out of 151 and had to replace it with Everclear.
Apologies to the attendees whom I did not warn in time.
You’ll notice the cocktail making robot in question is a great deal shinier than it was at Roboexotica 2006. This is because I ripped his guts out, rearranged them, added some shiny stuff and stuck a sticker over the whole mess. He feels much better now, thank you.
I was so glad to have the opportunity to introduce some of the party-going TED conferencers, the most enlightened, intelligent, tech-savvy and sensitive individuals on the planet, to the twenty-first century.
It was fabulous to explain over and over that yes, I built this machine, and yes, I also have mammary glands, and no, my husband did not do the work for me, and yes, I did in fact soil my pretty little hands with solder and worry my pretty little head about circuit diagrams and continuity testing and YES I even know what those big words mean!
So thank you, you select few, you earth movers and tree-shakers, you bastions of wit and talent; thank you for influencing my notions about the music makers and the dreamers of dreams that were at this conference. It is a lesson that I shall truly treasure.
I shoulda given you a cocktail.
To follow: A lovely mini photoblogpost showing ESB’s re-build leading up to the event.
Well, the She’s Such a Geek photo contest ends today: sneak over to Inking Magazine to see the winners.
Meanwhile, we’ve shamelessly pilfered a few of the entries. We confess: we’re biased towards the mechanical.
while( chicks + robots == hawt) printf(“w00t!\n”);
Because, like Robot Haiku, there just never seems to be enough.
Robot Comix is a blog by a very prolific young man who draws, uh, comix, featuring, um, robots.
Call the numbah, get in the comic.
So simple and all for the price of one phone call!
Ain’t technology amazin’?
[Thank you once more, Stuart "Not A Robot" Bird. . .]
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