I dunno who all reads this but seeing as I tend to swear, if not like a sailor, at least like a visiting cabin boy, y’all are probably okay with images of avant-garde Spanish performance artists projecting their manly bits onto large buildings in Spain:

He technically could be called a cyborg, more so if he needed mechanical assistance for his “power”.

Because who does not love light, aerodynamic aerial cuisinarts with minds of their own?

These hellys are already doing tasks in Asia and elsewhere, collaboratively, and with a minimum of breakage and crashing. Collaborative robots are what is going to make Skynet wake up one day, so everybody get on their good side now.

You can even buy one of your very own here from Rotomotion.

[via Dvice and The Lab For Autonomous Flying Robots. Thanks Swarmies!]

Or cold, actually, given average temperatures in the stratosphere on a given day.

The High Altitude Lego Extravaganza kicked off on July 29th (or yesterday, depending on your relative temporal position and various values of “yesterday”). The project, a joint effort between Lego Mindstorms and the University of Nevada at Reno, sent Lego NXT Mindstorm payloads up into the heavens via weather balloon, to conduct experiments which engaging in free-fall.

Is it safe to send LEGO MINDSTORMS into the stratosphere?

Perfectly safe… but I’m having trouble convincing the minifigs that will ride along of that :). Seriously, the NXT can function under the near vacuum conditions, and will function at low temperature (although the payloads do have insulation and heaters to try to keep them warmer than the -60° C temperatures outside). So for the NXT, conditions aren’t a major problem.

NevadaSat, the student satellite program of UNR, has been doing weather balloon research for years, but this is the first time Lego have come out to play with them. More info about the project and its payloads can be found here, at the NevadaSat HALE site.

Everyone present cried and took lots of pictures:

Yes, that is a diagram of a wee small orb’s first shaky foray into autonomous movement. We are beyond proud over here in the RoBunker, because hell that must have been approximately a ton and a half of hell to make it all go. From Michael Prados, One Of The Lead Swarmies and Possessor of The Will To Orb:

Jon, Niladri, and I coded all day, and then went to the soccer field to sit in the dark and code and debug some more. The culmination of this massive brain exertion is the stumbling attempt at a straight line in the linked jpg [above]. It may not look like much, but for the first time, all the major pieces of orb navigation are working together to autonomously guide the orb along a specified path. We are giving it a way point 20m in front of its initial position, and asking it to go there.

Le Roteur Superieur commemorates this historic moment with un petit pastiche de Seuss:

Congratulations!
Today is your day.
You’re off to Great Places!
You’re off and away!

You have brains in your Orbs.
You have code in your SPU
You can steer yourself
any direction you choose.
You’re on your own. And you know what you know.
And YOU are the SWARM who’ll decide where to roll.

You’ll look up and down streets. Look ‘em over with care.
About some you will say, “I don’t choose to go there.”
With your nice IMU and your SPU full of code,
you’re too smart to go down any not-so-good road.

And you may not find any
you’ll want to go down.
In that case, of course,
you’ll head straight out of town.

It’s opener there
in the wide open air.

Out there things can happen
and frequently do
to Orbs who are brainy
and swarmy as you.

And when things start to happen,
don’t worry. Don’t stew.
Just roll right along.
You’ll start happening too.

OH!
THE PLACES YOU’LL ROLL!

So, last Friday we went to our trusty place where we keep things, Nimby Space, in beautiful West Oakland, California.

We took all the bits and pieces we had left of the old arena, and sent them to the Happy Scrap Yard in the Sky (actually, the scrap yard is down the street but you get it). Here’s a pic of the old arena in action:

The bits and pieces we didn’t send to the knacker’s went to fine causes, I assure you. The Flaming Lotus Girls got some wall modules to make racks for their latest piece, Mutopia. The Neverwas Haul Krewe got lucky with some truly lovely aluminum trusses and other pieces of steel that they will eventually use for some completely astounding functional art piece or something.

So, Good Arena, ye served us well, thanks for everything, take care and don’t do anything we wouldn’t do. Here’s one last picture for waving good by:

“I’ll tell ya what we’re going to do with her; we’re gonna put her in the clapper, we’re gonna crunch her up ‘til she’s one solid piece of metal, then we’re gonna put her in the fiery furnace and we’re gonna melt her down ‘til she’s liquid iron. That’s what we’re gonna do with her.”

Here’s a cheery little tune that appeared in my inbox the other day. The song is by We’ll Write, “the only post-apocalyptic, quasi-acoustic indie-folk duo you’ll ever need”.

Think Flight Of The Conchords, only, you know, about killer death robot bent on human destruction:

When you’re more concerned with shambling zombie hordes and near-certain robot-death than you are about getting dumped by your girlfriend, you’ll need a band whose songs you can really relate to.” Pete says. We’ll Write sing those songs, and when the glass and ash settles, We’ll Write will still be standing, to guide everyone through the doom-times.

As they can’t be sure exactly when the bombs will fall, they’re releasing their album one song at a time, as quickly as they can record it. That way you’ll already know the songs come judgement day!

I have to love it when a band comes to us so prepared.

[Thanks Tom!]

More dangerous than BBs, funnier than live ammo, it’s a sentry paintball gun!

Adding to our obsession with everything related to Aliens, this automatic dealer of death is the sixth version of this particular project chronicled by David down in Jacksonville, Florida.

David has videos of various trials he has done, which is freaking awesome, but he will not let me embed video here so you all have to go see it on his site or on youtube.

It just goes to show that sometimes having to much free time is completely awesome.

Lem over at Robots-Dreams was musing about this pic he came across on the interwebs, and wanted to know more about it.

Well, my friends, this robot is the work of a robot freak from Oakland, California named Justin Grey, whom we have had the pleasure and privilege of working with on many occasions. Justin builds gorgeous fire-based instruments of irresistible destruction.

I have asked him for more info about his newest creature, but in the meantime here is a video of a robot he made last year, named Robot Libby after his dog:

See more of his work at his blog.

(FYI: We will be fumigating for corny headlines during routine maintenance, thanks for your patience)

There has been quite a bit of talk about making exoskeletons to enhance human abilities or help disabled people walk, but the thing that made me actually comment on this is this slick new thing from ReWalk that is not only useful, it’s actually aesthetically pleasing and not clunky.

They Shall Walk has a squishy place in our collective heart for being a medical non-profit and participating in RoboGames year after year. The LifeSuite is cool because it came from a real need. Mpnty Reed of They Shall Walk embarked on is course of study after he recoverd from, in his words, “Jumping out of a perfectly good airplane.”

The guys below have a multi-million dollar defense contract that ensures American soldiers can work themselves to the ground with a minimum of effort, which is of course the goal in the vast majority of government agencies:

We just like exoskeletons because we here in the RoBunker have an unhealthy obsession with Sigourney Weaver in Alien, especially that one scene.

[via Engadget, Medgadget, and ArgoMedTec]

And how!

The limeys seem to be stepping up their use of technology in the British shouting-and-killing-people trade. That’s giving Jerry one in the eye!

From Engadget:

The country’s border guards have now recruited some robots normally used in warzones to help root out folks trying to smuggle themselves into the country. Developed by BAE Systems, the so-called “Hero” bots are equipped with searchlights and high-resolution video cameras that let it search the inside and undersides of vehicles, and they could potentially be outfitted with heartbeat detectors as well, or even sensors to detect chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear materials being smuggled into the country.

Here’s another article in the Telegraph, and one from Danger Room.

The good part is, robots can’t be bribed, and can get into tighter places that humans or dogs. The bad news is that robots can’t be bribed, and they can get into tighter places than humans or dogs.

Cute little incredibly disturbing robots learn to empathize with their human overlords, the better to conquer them with (disturbing) cuteness:

Much like a human child, the robot learns from experience how to respond to emotions displayed by people around it.

If someone shows fear or cries out in pain, the robot may learn to change its behaviour to appear less threatening, backing away if necessary. If someone cries out in happiness, it may even detect the difference, and one day fine-tune its responses to individuals.

“It’s mostly behavioural and contact feedback,” project coordinator Dr Lola Canamero is quoted as saying in a BBC News story on Feelix Growing. “Tactile feedback and emotional feedback through positive reinforcement, such as kind words, nice behaviour or helping the robot do something if it is stuck,” she said.

I love me a good bit of techno peasant triumph themed industrial blight. Animation by Shane Acker.

[via Dailymotion]

[via Flickzz]

Because being a subgenre of an obscure subgenre is just about as nerdcore as it gets:

Points off for the messy popping and locking, but plus points for the phat vocoder rhymes.

Now, let’s say you want to sell a robotic pipetter. What do you do?

Well, you hire a boy band, and shoot a video in San Francisco, of course:

“Pipetting all those well-plates, baby, sends your thumbs into overdrive
And spending long nights in the lab makes it hard for your love to thrive

DNA
RNA
Proteins
Cell Cultures
Less reagents
Faster workflow
Saves you money
Well, well, well”

I could not make this stuff up.

(Missy SB promises to learn the words to this and sing it at ROFL con.)

Of course, RoboGames is ahead of the power-curve. There was a modified epMotion at RG-2007, serving shots:

via [le boing]