Magnus Würzer of RoboExotica and Shifz fame has taken this video in my very own kitchen. It is of our Intern’s marshammlow roasting robot, a fine tetrix-based contraption that results in burned sugar par excellance:
See more awesome like this at this year’s RoboGames, oh boy that’s a lot of robots.
The website pretty much says it all:
On March 24 from 1-5 PM EST hadto.net and FutureFarmers will be conducting a workshop called Human Powered Chatbot as part of the Reverse Ark at Baltimore Contemporary.
20 people will cooperate in a system of abstraction through simple rules to create a writing machine that will be connected to the internet via the Twitter and New York Times APIs
If you are interested in conversing with the Human Powered Chatbot you can follow it at http://twitter.com/human_bot on March 24 from 1-5 PM EST
During this time you can reply to ‘human_bot’ on twitter and it will respond to your messages.
[Thanks Bruce Sterling!]
I have been inundated with these photos, which are cool, so I am passing the savings on to you:
Lobsterbots, LEMURs, ATHELETEs, Mr. Wu, NASA rovers, Big Dogs, plant putters, dino bots, rescue remedies, warehouse automatons, Philip K. Dicks and mechanical men, from all over the world, rendered in breathtaking technicolor.
If this doesn’t bring it home that robots are already the big thing. . .Mr. Saffo? Any comments?
[Thanks to Scott Beale and RICK! for the links]
Katyusha Kalashnikova the Foul-Mouthed Midget sends us this neat little software bot that locates closed-captioned movies in whatever zip code you happen to be in.
Fomdi is a happy little search bot that enables the deaf and hard of hearing to find a movie they can actually enjoy in a theater. You’d be surprised how annoying this is to do ordinarily.
In addition, today YouTube unveiled a new captioning service for its videos, which is very forward thinking and not-evil of them to do. YouTube joins the ranks of other like-minded companies like the BBC, CNet, UC Berkeley, MIT and Gonzodoga that have realized that you you can just do the darndest things with all this new technology, and make friends and influence people besides.
All those beautiful, beautiful visions spinning about in your head have been made into gorgeous alcoholic reality. Ladies and gentlemen, Bar2D2:
Bar2D2 is capable of making your basic cocktails, and also incorporates a beer elevator to put a frosty brew into your hands upon request. The beer elevator is the business bits of a Harbor Freight electric caulking gun.
The base is a electric power chair, and he can schmooze with the cocktail crowd with his extensive R2D2 vocabulary, courtesy an R2D2 voice module and a Team Delta RCE210 relay board.
The beer elevator is enclosed by a spiffy polycarbonate cocoon, and the ice bucket lights up.
How prosh can a cocktail-slinging robot get??
Jamie Price, the builder, has a great set of photos of his progress here.
Bar2D2 has been a scant five months in the making, by a guy who has a day job and everything. Jamie credits stick-to-itiveness and BAD (Beer Aided Design) for his success.
Here’s his parts list:
My goal:
Create an rc bot that is loosely (very) modeled after R2D2 for the sole purpose of being a mobile bar/entertainment center.Features:
Clear lexan dome that houses a 6 liquor bottle carousel
Cups that have LED color shift (damn I love ebay)
Motorized Ice bin (remotely actuated)
Beer dispensing elevator (remotely actuated)
Neon, LED lighting accents
Motorized drivetrain
R2D2 sound effects
12 volt sla powered with on board ac/dc wall converter for long party times
2 victor 883 escs
futaba 6 channel radio
materials: metal, 3/4″ finish grade ply, sintra, lexan, chrome, plastic
If all goes well (and it has been!) Bar2D2 will be accepting his public and signing autographs at DragonCon in Atlanta, Georgia, August 29-September 1st (that’s next weekend campers!).
We’re also hoping Bar2D2 makes it to Vienna for RoboExotica this year.
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.
I love me a good bit of techno peasant triumph themed industrial blight. Animation by Shane Acker.
[via Dailymotion]
Moller International seem to be trying their darndest to make good on that whole Jetsons-flying-car future that we were all promised back in the ’60s.
It all sounds like pie to me:
From your garage to your destination, the M400 Skycar can cruise comfortably at 275 MPH (maximum speed of 375 MPH) and achieve up to 20 miles per gallon on clean burning, ethanol fuel. No traffic, no red lights, no speeding tickets. Just quiet direct transportation from point A to point B in a fraction of the time. Three dimensional mobility in place of two dimensional immobility.
Operators require a pilot’s license, and probably and airfield and a flight plan and a tower and safety equipment and some other stuff, but other than that it’s *just* like a car.
The Volantor is available for purchase, get in the first 500 delivery positions for a mere-smear $10,000 deposit!
Deposit is refundable until after a successful transitioning flight has occurred. Thereafter deposits are refundable only if Final Delivery Price exceeds List Price (as adjusted for CPI-W) by 5%, OR Standard Equipment List has been shortened OR Guaranteed Performance Specifications are not met, OR FAA Certification Date of the M400 Skycar occurs after December 31
Check out the video on the Moller website.
I am excited about the flying car, because the advancement of the flying car means that people will stop asking about &%$ Rosie sooner rather than later.
[via Gizmag]
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.
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.
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