No candle?

We are 90% certain that we have not blogged this before, but if we have, it’s still cool and it’s probably not in reruns anymore. Robotic crocodiles with tank treads are automatically cool:

Holy heck I would hate for any stray watermelons of ours to come upon that in a dark alley. . .

This Croc bite simulator was made for the show Animal Face-Off on the Discovery Channel. Their lab is way sexier than other robot labs I have known. *We* want disco lighting in *our* shop.

I guess the human is R2’s proctologist?

SB fan and all around with-it guy Eddie Codel has just posted an interview with Captured! By Robots on the superlative video blog, Geek Entertainment TV!

Captured! By Robots is a band that was formed by a human, but taken over by the robots he constructed for his backup band. They have smart mouths, torture their human, and you know they will be the ones pulling the trigger when the revolution comes.

Mister Robotics is back in the land of his people - with TaterTot String Bean Jello Hot Dish, Lutefisk, Shopping Malls, and the barest ruminations of culture.

Fortunately, he found some by artist Linnea Doyle. He likes it. Pieces are available for sale, but you probably gotta ask Ms. Doyle.

Those crazy folks from the Center for Robot Assisted Search and Rescue are at it again with the robot rescue stuff.

Kevin Pratt has sent us some recent news footage of the CRASAR team rocking the real-world tests. These are the robots you wanna see when you’re trapped under a building.

CNN

And the local stations.

More on CRASAR here!

We couldn’t make this up if we tried:

Filthy, filthy pictures after the break.

[Thanks, thanks a WHOLE LOT, Sam Coniglio and Third Eye Dumb]

[Update: RICK! says: "Mark it NSFJE (Not suitable for JPL employees)"]

(more…)

When an affinity for electronics meets a wide streak of morbid curiosity, the results are truly artistic. They are also freaking awesome. Behold what your contribution to arts grants around the world can produce:

Garnet Hertz - Experiments in Galvanism: Frog with Implanted Webserver

This is one wired frog. When it’s up and running (usually at Very Serious Art Exhibitions) a webpage enables people around the world to control the frog via the web server embedded in its body, as it lies suspended in an arty glass cube filled with mineral oil.

While we are oohing and ahhing over the teeny weeny servos, and the simply *precious* linear actuators controlling the leg kicking portion of the art piece, like any good roboticist we’re dissecting it and thinking of ways we could make it niftier. So far we’re thinking artful deployment of muscle wire and a BASIC stamp or other microcontroller with an L293D stuck into it would make for a pretty good array of controllability. The zip ties are a nice touch though.

Also, why stop at frogs? We have a pair of taxidermied mice in the RoBunker that are just BEGGING for a little soft-shoe number to “Tea For Two” or something similar. There’s also a pothos plant in the corner that could use a little remote controlled tentacle action, if you know what we mean.

Excuse us, SB has a little tinkering to do.

[Mange Takk to Le Boing]

Kevin M. over there at the SRL workshop reports that you can teach an old devil some new tricks, in this case some flametastic ones:

I guess the SRL folks are going to Robodock over there in that Holland, along with the Famous Loading Flaming Lotus Girls.

There’s actually very little I can add to this, so just go check it out. kthnx.

From the folks that brought you the video bowling robot, it’s combat lego. Ouch.

Visit the graveyard. That’s gotta hurt.

From our good friend and man in the field, Douglas Repetto:

Attention SB: avoid Knokke, Belgium. It’s full of bot-killers!

A moment of silence please for our comrades who perhaps entered this establishment, but never came out . . .

There’s something autistically wonderful about these Robot Arm Clocks.

One of the Rotor’s favorite words is funktionslust — German for the pleasure you take in doing something well. If it’s possible for a robot to enjoy funktionslust, this one is.

Tip o’ the hubcap to Eeeevil Mad Scientist laboratories, whom we had the pleasure of annoying at the Maker Faire.