And also deLIcious!

[Thank you to our hero, @ebertchicago]

It’s been quiet here in the Uncanny Valley, as we stand around awkwardly in our black suits next to the buffet, finding comfort in funeral potatoes and leftover hamentashen, trying to find something to say that will alleviate the great sense of loss upon hearing of the demise of one of our own, ABE the undersea explorer, out of Wood Hole Oceanographic Institute.

ABE in happier times

Brought out of retirement for an expedition off the coast of Chile, ABE, and autonomous exploratory submersible, was searching for hydrothermal vents on the sea floor when both acoustic transponders on his hull stopped responding.

Dr. Dana Yoerger, senior scientist and a member of the team who built ABE, speaking from the expedition ship Melville, said in ABE’s New York Times Obituary: “For both to die at exactly the same time means probably something very bad and very violent happened,”

Dr. Chris German, a Woods Hole senior scientist who was also in Chile with ABE at the time of the accident, soldiered on admirably, though shaken.

“You’re stuck at sea and you can’t just cry and go home,” he said. “So you figure out what’s the best you can do with what’s available.” That has involved using more conventional equipment to sample the water for other evidence of hydrothermal events, compiling data that can be used when researchers come back.”

Dr. Dana Yoerger reflects:

Dr. Yoerger said he had tried not to become too emotional about the loss of ABE, particularly given the human suffering nearby in Chile from the recent earthquake. “This is aluminum, glass and silicon,” he said. “We can build a new one.”

Still, he said, there had been some trying moments. “The most difficult one was writing the e-mails to my children and grandchildren telling them that their robotic friend was gone.”

::sniffle:: Goodspeed, ABE, tell Cthulhu “Hi” for us as your survey the streets of downtown R’Lyeh for all eternity.

[Tip of the cocktail napkin to OtherMichael]

While we think the technological prowess demonstrated by these giant strip-mining machines heralds a new era in the industrialization of the American landscape, others choose to comment via culturally prescient collaborations that invite thoughtful commentary and astute criticism.

This video featuring the Bagger 288 large-scale industrial mining bucket-wheel excavator, is one such work.

[via @iidocracy on Twitter]

I really like this senselessly sweet and adorably interactive robot project, so much so that I am contemplating digging around in the the garage and building one, because we don’t have enough projects around here.

From the Guardian UK:

Meet the Guardian Robot: This friendly little fellow stands on your desk and monitors your Twitter feed for “happy” and “sad” posts by your friends on your Twitter feed. But unlike conventional alert systems, this robot encourages you to interact with the posts it finds.

• You can follow the Guardian Robot on its own Twitter account at http://twitter.com/guardianrobot. Send him a message with a “#highfive” hashtag to get a high five, or send him a “#ineedahug” hashtag if you are feeling low.

You can also see the Guardianbot live over the magical interwebs (when he is broadcasting) here!

(via Makezine!)

A long time ago (well, 30 years ago), in a Midwestern state far, far away (well, 3700 miles away), I was a young boy who dreamed of robots. While my sweet mother bought me an Intellivision (so much better than Atari. Loved that talking B-17 bomber game), what I really wanted was a robot. Not some silly wind up robot. No, a real one. Of course I knew that R2-D2’s level of intelligence was far off, but still, a robot would be cool. And you could get a robot. There was a fantastic Japanese company, Tomy, that made real robots, called OmniBots.

Alas, I never did get an Omnibot and still don’t have one, even though I now own around 200 robots (no really. 14 humanoids alone. Two life-sized R2-D2’s. Twelve omni-wheeled soccer bots. My wife must love me…). But a guy can reminisce. And what with the internets and databases and all, I can surf for all the robots that I missed out on as a kid:

Tomy Bots via [le Boing]

I promise you this is not another mere-smear BS YouTube embed just to say we’ve posted when we actually are only posting a BS Youtube embed.

Okay so maybe it could kind of lok that way but it’s cool because tis is abkut US! As in, it’s about RoboGames, the li’l shindig we throw in June or thereabouts in San Francisco.

Bill Sherman, robot builder extraordinaire, always sets up a nifty time lapse camera at RoboGames to capture the arena build and all sorts of other silliness. He has included footage he took of some of the art bot mezzanine as well. Tel him how neat he is and thank him for putting this up.

[BTW, hello to all those coming from Neatorama through the Rotor's last post, we weren't expecting guests to please forgive us if we're scrambling around to tidy things up.]

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.

[via The Robot Fighting League Forum]

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.