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.

Sweet 3D renderings of very whimsical robots. Want one.

Andre Kutscherauer [via Bot Junkie]

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!

In an effort to shamelessly promote the extreme cleverness of what we do behind the scenes here at Suicidebots, and to prove that we can walk the walk as well as roll the servos, we would like to humbly bring to your attention to an exciting new partnership with Make Magazine:

Nothing says “robot” like an android. So lets make one of our own! This course will take you through the steps of building your own android. You’ll leave with a working, foot tall programmable android! You can use it for kung-fu matches, dancing, stair-climbing or many other events. Humanoid is designed to be remote controlled, but can be used autonomously by adding sensors. The course is only $599, and you walk with an an android and the know-how to program it.

This is an excellent opportunity to break into robotics if you’ve never done it before. It’s also a great opportunity to get a competition-ready robot in time to register for RoboGames!

This class is taking place in the San Francisco Bay Area, so all you Bay Area thinkers, makers, and wannabe roboticists, come out and play!

And yet, it is high-larious. At least for me. But I’m easy.

I swear to god I thought of this years ago. But my dogs don’t chase balls, so I never got around to building one.

Anyway, for those people too lazy to even throw a ball for their dog… I give you:

Whurley alerts us to teensy weensy, tiny, itty bitty almost nonexistent leetle accident that happened in the parking lot of BarCamp Austin featuring Team XD, former robot combat contenders.

Click below for the video.

It appears that during a demo in the parking lot, Steel Reign got a little bit big for his britches, plowed through the crowd and managed to take out the A/C unit on the neighboring building.

Good Times.

Bob Full and Co. over at UC Berkeley get props from the SF Chronicle for their work with geckos.

I have a crush on Bob Full, who spoke for us at the AAAS conference last year in SF.

Congrats to Kevin Pratt, our homie down in sunny Florida, for convincing the University of South Florida that he will not, in fact, use his power for evil, and filing his thesis on robotic search and rescue!



There will always be a place for you in our supervillain lair should you ever decide to come to the dark side, Kevin. We’ll let you sleep under the death ray.

So this is all over the place now, but I am spreading the joy of a Kuka-powered trebuchet to you, our extremely bored readers. See the beauty. Watch the innovation. Get all sweaty and hot about Science.

The disclaimer is the really awesome part.

If you’ll remember, that particular Kuka model also has been known to drop phat beats and scrizzatch them mad rhymes.

[via Botjunkie via Hackaday via Manapotions]

The brilliant conglomerate down at Evil Mad Scientist Labs (well actually this one was Lenore’s) has exceeded my wildest expectations.

Okay, maybe the expectations were not wild per se. Maybe I just have an unruly fondness for snails.

And zinfandel. Right now anyway. Ahem. Moving on.

Lenore calls it the Escargobot. Get it? Get it? ‘Cause it’s a robot and it’s a snail and. . .never mind.

Here is another confession: I have two goldfish bowls filled with baby snails in my kitchen right now. It was an accident (the condom broke) but they are just the CUTEST lil things. . .if anyone wants a baby Mystery snail, lemme know before Mr. Robotics breaks out the garlic and butter.

So one of the cooler non-robot websites i read regularly is TikiBarTV. For those of you who like tiki drinks, cocktail culture, or heck, just funny videos - you should check out their site.

Of course, they like robots too. In fact, they made a cocktail robot:

See how many cool robot movie references you can catch. And if you need a 2008 calendar, well… the Lala pin-up calendar isn’t a shabby way to go.

When I die, I hope the angels are half as sexy as Lala.