The exhausted, late night, absinthe-laced parental pride could just be cut with a KNIFE around here people. . .The Orb Swarm Horde has done it again, working tirelessy into the night realize the Swarm’s dream of cute, shiny world domination.

From Michael Prados:

Niladri and I started the dispatcher program, detached the ethernet cable, and removed our stuff to a respectable distance from orb 1 on the soccer field. It then spent a minute figuring out the
initial bias on its sensors, and started rolling. It turned left and followed the line of the mid-field circle, and corrected a bit. It never strayed more than 2-3m from the line, we never turned the joystick on, and after four complete circles, we got tired of walking along with it and turned it off.

Here’s what it looked like:

There’s nothing like a deadline to inspire amazing work. Look for the Orb Swarm dancing (all on their own!) in Black Rock City at this year’s Burning Man. Also, check out the Orb Swarm’s blog for technical details, interesting tidbits, and information.

While you’re at it, express your appreciation for your future spherical overlords by displaying their stickers, writing them fanmail and helping out by bringing them burritos and Co-Cola in their hour of need.

Remember Campers, the word of the day is Negentropy.

New Scientist reports that the University of Reading has made a robot using neuron’s from a rat brain.

The robot’s biological brain is made up of cultured neurons which are placed onto a multi electrode array (MEA). The MEA is a dish with approximately 60 electrodes which pick up the electrical signals generated by the cells. This is then used to drive the movement of the robot. Every time the robot nears an object, signals are directed to stimulate the brain by means of the electrodes. In response, the brain’s output is used to drive the wheels of the robot, left and right, so that it moves around in an attempt to avoid hitting objects. The robot has no additional control from a human or a computer, its sole means of control is from its own brain.

The researchers are now working towards getting the robot to learn by applying different signals as it moves into predefined positions. It is hoped that as the learning progresses, it will be possible to witness how memories manifest themselves in the brain when the robot revisits familiar territory.

…

This is no ordinary robot control system – a plain old microchip connected to a circuit board. Instead, the controller nestles inside a small pot containing a pink broth of nutrients and antibiotics. Inside that pot, some 300,000 rat neurons have made – and continue to make – connections with each other.

As they do so, the disembodied neurons are communicating, sending electrical signals to one another just as they do in a living creature. We know this because the network of neurons is connected at the base of the pot to 80 electrodes, and the voltages sparked by the neurons are displayed on a computer screen.

I had the pleasure of speaking with Dr. Warwick, one of the leaders in the experiment, at TechFest in Bombay 2 years ago. I’ve read his books, and at first glance, he seems like a nut. But then, so did Einstein. He’s one of the most brilliant people I’ve ever met, and I am certain that he’ll both cure Parkinson’s (some would say he already has done so, it’s just that the friggin’ Fed’s will take forever to approve it) and be a Nobel laureate for doing so.

I love the onion. Rarely topical to robots, but they hit now and again…

We’ve always had our suspicions about David Byrne, but it just makes us love him more.

David Byrne has teamed up with our pals Hanson Robotics to make Julio, a singing head and shoulders bot. Julio is haunting, yet oddly compelling.

David Byrne also has a few choice things to say on Julio and robotics in general, and one of my favorite subjects, The Uncanny Valley:

Part of the enjoyment of seeing the various robots at Nextfest was experiencing a taste of the uncanny. The idea of the uncanny was proposed by Ernst Jentsch in 1906. He refers to the uncanny as something uncertain or undecidable which therefore makes us uncomfortable. [Freud disagreed—or elaborated on this]. He calls it un-heimlich, the un-home-like. His idea is that our psychological concept of home implies familiarity and comfort, a sense of ease, and, according to him, any concept we hold also implies the existence of its polar opposite—the un-home-like, the unusual, the unknown, the strange.

I love where this is going. It brings to mind an image of someone sitting in a comfortable chair, maybe with friends, and maybe they’re having drinks—and at the same time Jentsch posits that layered over or under this image is the profoundly creepy, the deeply strange and disturbing. We’re in the land of David Lynch and Hitchcock. ET landing in the familiar U.S. suburbs could be viewed this way, or the various living dead and vampire movies.

More recently Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori proposed the existence of something called the uncanny valley. This “valley” is an area of emotional uncertainty and often revulsion experienced by an observer when a robot or computer animation (for example) approaches being human, is almost believable, but not quite.

He suggests that our emotional empathy with animations and robots increases as they get closer and closer to being human (or animal)—but then, at a certain point, they fall into the valley, and our empathy turns to disgust. In his view they switch from being a cute thing approaching humanity to a bad or faulty version of humanity. It is at this point that we see them as not merely slightly strange, but as a human with serious problems. If the creation can succeed in being a little bit better as a believable creature the feeling of revulsion disappears. For some viewers, recent films like Beowulf fall into this valley, while others find the almost humans acceptable.

This is especially relevant to us over here lately, since we are in the process of moving out of the RoBunker and into the quality (if slightly unnerving) digs of Uncanny Valley, just outside of San Francisco. We’ll let you know if it makes visitors sick or just slightly weirded out.

[David Byrne links and stuff courtesy those fine dorks over at Metafilter]

It’s lazytimes here at the Robunker, so for your eddification I would present to you a really cool magical interactive stepping stone bridge:

This piece is by Michael Cross and it is a brilliant illustration of how art can be used to mess with people’s heads. Brilliant twist in the bridge’s deployment as well.

For those who were interested in the lyrics to the previous German song “Kaputt”. Full lyrics after the jump
(more…)

A little tidbit for all of you in the greater Bay Area – Ken Goldberg, robot god of UC Berkeley, will be speaking at Science Cafe on August 18th at the Atlas Cafein San Francisco.

Photo Courtesy Berkeley Engineering Forefront
Ken Goldberg: Not just a robot guy, but the frontman for his very own telerobotic emo band*

Is there decision-making strength in numbers? Professor Goldberg and his students are looking into questions raised by robots and social networks — and working on a new class of interfaces and games based on networked robots and cameras that quantify a measure of “leadership” to bring about group discovery and decision-making based on the power of crowds.

Ken will report on experiments and questions raised by robots and social networks, ranging from Ouija boards to human “tele-actors,”and tell a true story about how invasions of privacy led him and his students to study how robots can assist in monitoring the natural environment. Ken will describe a robotic system they’ve deployed to assist the search for the Ivory Billed Woodpecker, a bird of extreme interest to birdwatchers, ornithologists, and conservationists whose last confirmed sighting was in 1944. Ken will also describe the Berkeley Center for New Media, a highly cross-disciplinary center with over 110 affiliated faculty from 30 Cal Departments.

*not really

A couple of our favorite robot guys from back in the day, Inertia Labs, are just pleased as punch and pink with enthusiasm to show of their spiffy new robot platform design, which they have been noodling with for over a year now and have just gotten up to their exacting, stainless-steel loving, onerously precise, picky-pants standards:

They have teamed up with Surveyor Corp produce these kits, and all snark aside, Inertia Labs makes some truly quality product (Zander’s not even my boss anymore so I am no longer even contractually obligated to say that).

Get your very own Inertia Labs/Surveyor robot kits, mobility base, parts, and etc Right Here.

A few technical specs and details from Alexander Rose:

“This new design merges two of the electronics boards, uses 4 motors (one per wheel,) a low profile LiPoly 2000Mah 7.2v battery to make the whole unit more compact, faster, and stronger.

Like our other kits these chassis are designed around the Sanyo NA-series gearmotors, that have been specially made with long shafts for direct drive of the wheels and treads.

You can purchase the complete unit, just the base to update your older SRV, or components. The standard base is ready to run with the electronics from Surveyor. Only six wires need to be soldered.

You can also use this mobility base with a speed controller and Rx to make a treaded RC robot as with our other kits.

Also, it comes fully assembled RTR with charger. It’s super spiffy – wifi-enabled, drive-by-internet capable, treaded, open source, fast processor, video, lipoly powered, blah blah blah.

These men truly bleed science.

In case you weren’t already completely convinced that this is the simply the most superlative platform kit that has ever been invented, ever, check out this awesome application of the platform. By awesome, I of course mean totally sweet.

Tain’t nothing sadder, truly:

The song, appropriately enough, is called “Kaput”.

And remember, meat puppets, be nice to your robots, they might not be completely broken and have a chance of coming for you while you sleep.

Lyrics here.

[Via BotJunkie]

Here’s a wee small infotaining video from New Scientist that talks about prototypes for what could eventually be nano swarmbots. The video is tantalizing and does not go nearly into enough depth on what people at places like CarNAYgie Mellon are working on, but it’s something nice for your brain to chew on (assuming your brain has teeth).

Okay not technically a robot, but let’s file this one under “kinetic art”:

Ah, the joy that robots bring into your life.

Four years ago today (August 1st), I married the best girl in the world. She’s the best present that I have ever got, but the best present that we got that day, was our ring-bearer – Mechadon, courtesy of Mark Setrakian and Peter Abrahamson.

To keep this topical:


(When I grow up, I wanna be Mark Setrakian and make robots like he does – ones that you’d think would be CGI but are real… Mind you, that would mean that someone would have to cure my ADHD first… )

Anyway, apparently, our happy day was a news-worthy event. Although there are lots of pix from that great day…

Simone is still a stinky girl, but she’s OK for someone with cooties.

Hold on while I go punch her in the arm and run away.