A wee small video from the always obliging Caroline Miller (Mills):
You so, so wish you had been there. Okay except for the 110 degree all day every day part.
Here also is a picture of The Rotor, looking resplendent in crocodile hunter gear with a Swarm Orb or two, courtesy Wired Magazine:
We satisfied several orbalicious fantasies last night, as The Swarm got to roll around the crowd during Kraftwerk’s set at the Cochella Music Festival. Yes, it was, in fact, everything we hoped for and more.
Here are some pics, courtesy Caroline Miller (Mills) ne of our intrepid Swarm number and a Flaming Lotus Girl to boot. The whole team has been working their robot-loving behinds off to make Swarm go, and aside from a few little fixes, the orbs are working beautifully.
And of all of you campers playing along at home, Le Rotor Supérieur y Yo, La Simoncita, are here at the beautiful Coachella music festival with the rest of the SWARM team, showing the world the size of our shiny metal balls.
If you are down at the festival this weekend, come on by. We’re on from 2:30-8:30pm, and you can either find us on the map or find us nearish to the Pod and the Steampunk TreeHouse.
We will be wearing our black and white gang colors as it gets cooler. . .
[thanks for the photo, Tristan Sabatier!]
So, we’re all running around here like freaking Robot Chickens, so here’s a quick little thing to go to tonight if you are in San Francisco. Nerdsalon is hosted jointly by folks from the EFF and Io9, and it promises to be drunken fun.
It’s also MISTER ROBOTICS’ BIRTHDAY, SO WISH HIM A HAPPY ONE!!!!!
Stay tuned for posts from the road, The Rotor and I am heading out to Coachella with the SWARM, and Mr. R is going to Phoenix for some other damn robot thing I dunno how we get ourselves into this. . .
One of the cool things about RoboGames is all the people we meet from different walks of life. Most are not engineers. Many are artists, some are blue-collar workers, some kids, some white-collar, some retirees…. You get the picture.
Of all the many people I’ve met, one of the most talented is I-Wei Huang, who made the above steam powered robots. He’s also a creator, animator, rigger, screen play writer, and voice talent (yes, he really is that multi-talented) and he’s currently looking for a job.
If you’re in need of an amazingly talented robot builder, animator, illustrator, thinker, or doer, I-Wei is your guy (in my experience, work ethic is more important than IQ or talent, but I-Wei has all three in spades). Look at the below examples, and then recruit him.
I must say, I-Wei has the single greatest resume I’ve ever seen. I wish that I had the balls to write a resume like that.
Robot Evolution, for your watching pleasure, because we’re freakin’ busy over here:
[Thanks Rochelle!]
. . .A video of a Russian screw-drive assault machine:
[Thanks Joanne!]
Instructables and RoboGames are pleased as a center punch to announce a new and spiffy Robot Building Contest!
Robots are never going to take over the world if we don’t get off the couch and make them ourselves! Want to win a trip to RoboGames 2009? Tell us how you made your robot.
Good robot design is highly detailed, so we’re asking you to document specific parts of your robot for this contest. Maybe you built the ultimate manipulator arm, designed a killer sensor array, reused some great trash, or just made a gorgeous housing - pick something you’re proud of, and share how you made it.
Show us what you and your robots can do, and win a trip to go to RoboGames, flight and hotel room included! We’re also giving away a Robonova Walking Android kit, and lots of Robot-themed gear.
Submit your entries, children, and you too may have the opportunity to see a bunch of mad people doing what they do best: fiddling with electricity and destroying things to find out more about them!
Those wacky Germans. They’ve done away with human waiters. Replaced them with robots.
From the BBC:
Germany likes to call itself the “Land of Ideas” - and over the centuries it has certainly had plenty of them. It was Germans who invented the aspirin, the airship, the printing press and the diesel engine.
But Germany has surely never produced anything quite as weird as the automated restaurant. I say “restaurant” - but it actually looks more like a rollercoaster, with long metal tracks criss-crossing the dining area. The tracks run all the way from the kitchen, high up in the roof, down to the tables, twisting and turning as they go. And down the tracks - in little pots with wheels fixed to the bottom - speeds food.
Supersonic sausages, high-pace pancakes and wine bottles whizzing down to the customers’ tables with the help of good old gravity. One pot is spiralling down so fast, it looks like an Olympic bobsleigh (but it’s only Bratwurst).
What’s more, at the ’s Baggers restaurant in Nuremberg, you don’t need waiters to order food. Customers use touch-screen TVs to browse the menu and choose their meal.
You can even use the computers to send e-mails and text messages while you wait for the food to be cooked. But all this may not appeal to those who like traditional waiter service.
Further proof that the Netherlands is still cooler than we are:
Payment is automatic too. It just magically gets debited from one’s account. Way to never, ever have to get out of the car ever again. As The Rotor Says, “I Love Living In The Future!”.
Further reading over at Reuters.
Clean your exhaust port with Android toilet tissue
At least, that is what I can’t help thinking.
The folks at CarNAYgie Mellon and some other excessively smart people have come up with a kick ass prototype for a supple little number for possibly traveling through your circ system and curing the signs of your fried chicken and potato chip diet.
The CardioArm is operated using a computer and a joystick. It has 102 degrees of freedom, three of which can be activated at once. This allows it to enter through a single point in the chest and wrap around the heart until it reaches the right spot to, say, remove problematic tissue. “The nice thing about [the] design is that each joint follows where you went in space. That’s not always possible in other designs,” says Webster. This kind of control prevents the probe from bumping into sensitive tissue. The disadvantage of a jointed robot, however, is that it’s harder to miniaturize, Webster says.
It also works really nicely as a model for when you do your sweded version of Dune. Plus, 120 degrees of freedom! *rowwrrrr*
The Orb Swarm has been blogged by Radiolab, a show on WNYC that explores and experiments with science, philosophy, sound and everything else.
They have written a very nice article. Read it here. They have also linked to an intriguing short doc on how the swarm works, explained by the excellent Michael Prados, Simran Gleason, Coreyfro, and Steve “‘Dillo” Okay.
I have embedded the video here too. Also check out The Orb Swam Blog for up-to-the-minute Swarm news and updates, and and The Rotor Show (A fine product of Rotorbrain Industries) for more Swarmalicious video.
So seeing as the denizens of SuicideBots have a think for Kraut rock, eclectica and robotics, the delightful Scott Beale over at Laughing Squid sent me this Muxtape this morning:
Muxtape apparently is the future’s substitute for sitting around late on a Friday night, mucking around with your dad’s stereo equipment, making that special mix for the cute person in Biology so they’ll share your, um, headphones with you later. Only you can do it in like, seventeen seconds, instead of spending hours trying to figure out why the aux isn’t talking to the receiver and looking for that one cable with the thing on the end that you need ’cause the amp is some weird european thing that doesn’t interface with any of your other components ’cause Dad is a sound nerd and said the sooner you figured it out yourself the better off you’d be, and something chewed through your last good speaker cable so you have to use the shit ones and it’s a good thing the person you’re making it for is totally worth it, because the time you’ve already invested in this, the perfect mixtape, will probably cause you to have another panic attack in Trig because you’re underslept and didn’t do the homework, but it’s almost time for Dr. Demento so you have to take a break and that’s a good thing anyway because you’re pretty sure you blew something up turning the power on in the wrong order.
What was I talking about?
Anyway, listen to this awesome Muxtape by LaughingSquid, and rock out with your robot out.
OB Shop Tip: Music in the shop is important for productivity. Mr. Robotics finds hard rock good for concentration. The Head Rotor enjoys things like this. I personally like Rick Astley.
[Thank you Scott and Boing Boing]
UPDATE: Scott actually came across this playlist in his rss feeds this morning, but didn’t make it himself. Sorry for any confusion!
You are currently browsing the Suicide Bots weblog archives for April, 2008.
