In our ongoing quest to post absolutely nothing of hard scientific value this week whatsoever, we bring you the tiny shenanigans of Mike the Robot, submitted to us eons ago via The Contact Form (remember The Contact Form?).
Jack Dow chronicles the everyday doings of his little pal Mike The Robot. This photo set is just gorgeously turned out. Also: Giggling.
The whole shebang is well worth poring over at length.
On this fine US Thanksgiving Day, as you reflect on the bounty that surrounds you (or on the turkey pot pie you just pulled from the microwave, whatever) remember that robots are not necessarily always the cold-hearted world-destroying automatons that we might presume them to be.
Apropos of this here is an absolutely cutie-patootie 80s-tastic irony-anerable music video by Dan Mangan and friends.
Robots By Dan Mangan
Roooobooots Neeed Looove Toooo. . . .
[A thousand times thank you for sending this our way, Heather Knight!]
Why Living In The Future is awesome part 54765: Robot Astronauts! The last voyage of Space Shuttle Discovery was scratched until later in the month last week, but it’ll be worth waiting for because Robonaut, my favorite “Maybe this will someday happen” NASA project, will be large and in charge (okay maybe not *in charge*) on the flight, as a full-fledged crew member.
A Robonaut is a dexterous humanoid robot built and designed at NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. Our challenge is to build machines that can help humans work and explore in space. Working side by side with humans, or going where the risks are too great for people, Robonauts will expand our ability for construction and discovery. Central to that effort is a capability we call dexterous manipulation, embodied by an ability to use one’s hand to do work, and our challenge has been to build machines with dexterity that exceeds that of a suited astronaut.
And because we live In The Future, you can find out all about the mission schedule and progress by following RoboNaut’s Twitter Stream.
[Thanks Dale Larson!]
Let’s count all the robots! Heather Knight, doctoral candidate at CarNAYgie Mellon University, is embarking on this noble project. I like how she openly addresses that this project will raise the question of just what a robot is, in the first place.
“Data gathering for the U.S. 2010 Census may be finished, but it has just begun for the Robot Census 2010. Heather Knight, a first-year PhD student in the Robotics Institute, has launched the unprecedented effort to count every robot residing in Carnegie Mellon University’s laboratories.
The idea occurred to Knight and her fellow first-years after listening to faculty presentations during this term’s grad student immigration course. “As much as we’re here for the professors,” she explained, “we’re also here for the robots.” With no full accounting available of CMU robots – much less a list of the coolest robots with the wackiest names — the obvious next step was a census.
Knight and her designer friend Chris Becker created a Interactive PDF Form, seeking information regarding the status, year of creation and location of each robot, and distributed it within the Robotics Institute via email. Though she has requested that forms be filled out and returned by Sept. 8, she realizes nothing is that simple for a census taker. “It raises the question, of course, of what is a robot,” she noted. And busy professors already are handing the forms off to busy grad students. “I suspect it will require a fair amount of door-to-door footwork to get this finished,” she added.
Let the good robot bar conversations begin!
We are breaking the radio silence to note our presence at a few events this past weekend in the Greater NYC area, and to formally announce our surprise that there are whole subsections of the population who do not need to be told that “fire” is “hot” when under the influence of alcohol.
Super mega huge thanks to Bar2D2 and his people, Jamie and Julie Price, for coming out from Tennessee and showing their stuff. Here are Jamie and Julie at Maker Faire NYC, in the Great Hall at the New York Hall of Science.
Here is another shot of Bar2D2 (the blue blur in the lower left) meeting his public at the Diesel-sponsored Superglued/Gawker Media Silent Rave.
This was a rooftop soiree for young and adorable media types who flocked to Gawker headquarters in lower Manhattan somewhere in order to get their high-energy drink on to the lilting strains of The Eclectic Method*. The “silent rave” part came when they busted the headphones out at ten pm to outsmart the amplified noise ordinances. Everyone was bopping and rocking with the headphones on while simultaneously talking over the loud music being projected into their gently tipsy brainmeats.
El Espanol Borracho made appearances as well, which were warmly regarded, but unfortunately no one seems to have any pics of the 95 consecutive flaming absinthe shots it dispensed in two hours at the Maker Day NYC party. If you or your next of kin have photos, we here at SB.com would very greatly appreciate them and reward you richly with robot stickers and alcohol.
UPDATE: Jason Naumoff thoughtfully forwards one of these official photos taken at the MakerFaire/Red Bull Create The Future event of Borracho in action:
Borracho, sadly, did not make an appearance at the Gawker Party due to physics and a refusal of the management to believe that nether it nor its operator have ever set anything on fire *unintentionally*. Any disappointed fans of fire please write in to Rave 2010, c/o Gawker NYC and lodge your complaints.
Anyhow, a good time was had by all, the media flowed freely, as did the booze, and we look forward to continuing to gently gloat about parties we get paid to go to in the future, for your reading enjoyment.
*Not particularly germane to this post but we had to say something: Eclectic Method slaughtered with their remixes of David Bowie plus Rick James and Lady Gaga with the Talking Heads and Marvin Gaye and I think they quoted Buckaroo Banzai in there somewhere too, maybe, it’s all a blur. I don’t even like DJs, but these guys win. We even have it on good authority that Laughing Squid‘s Primary Tentacle himself would have come out if he knew they were playing, and he had *heatstroke*.
Ooh, your so *gentle*, turn my dials, you always do it *just* right. Adjust my mix, ADJUST IT MORE OH YEAH Say my alloy. Say My Alloy! SAY IT!
Was it good for you?
This video is an 18′ pipe with a 1/2″ wall being cut in half by an oxyacetylene torch for use in a kinetic art piece. We must find this kinetic art piece. Oh Yes. It is from BenderAutomatic’s YouTube page
[Thanks Lee!]
Welcome Robot Fighting League member Guerra De Robots, a confederation between IEEE, IEEE Mexico, and UPIITA
Their motto is “Luchando por nuestra identidad tecnológica”, or “Fighting for our technical identity.
We expect great things of them in the coming months, mostly involving solving highly refined technical problems in order to bash the living hell out of the other robot in the arena. ¡Que tenga buena suerte, todos!
Yes, it’s
COMBOTS CUP V
October 23-24th, 2010 at the beautiful San Mateo Expo Center in beautiful San Mateo, Ca. Tickets are on sale now at Combots.net!
COMBOTS CUP V is so stupendous I am contractually obligated to spell it in all caps.
COMBOTS CUP V is robot combat at its best, with competition from the tiniest 1-pound ant weights to 220lb heavyweights (which are on the biggish side).
Thank You Mad Overlord for the hi-def videos from RoboGames 2010, whoo.
See the thrill of victory, and the smoke and flames of defeat! See small children getting into hard core mechanical engineering and software programming! See who wins some of our $3500 prize purse, and who goes home in a bucket.
Those of you familiar with combat robotics know it's way better live, with crashing, bashing, flaming and those interesting smells that usually spell catastrophe. All safety measures will be taken so you can see robots launch themselves at each other in a brilliant display of engineering and sportsmanship.
Tickets are available now at Combots.net, but why not compete? Build a robot for any one of our five weight classes, then register here!.
Not competing in October? Come get a taste of things to come, then go home and build your machine for THE INTERNATIONAL ROBOGAMES, coming April 17-19th, 2011
Spread it far and wide, like hydraulic fluid gushing from an injured heavyweight! Bring your friends! Bring your enemies! Enjoy delightful beer and snacks on a genteel afternoon filled with WANTON DESTRUCTION and delightful precision mechanics, with some of the nicest people you’d ever want to tear apart your lovingly crafted machine.
Seriously, it’s fun. You should go. And bring your robot.
Been sitting on this one unintentionally for a bit. As Nick Donaldson, the Michael Phelps of robot competitions, always says, “It’s surprisingly hard to give a robot soul.” Soul maybe not, but trippy 80s-style downtempo chillout rock, yes. The robot band Recorder was submitted via our handy dandy cutting edge Contact Form, and we here in the RoBunker were pleasantly surprised.
Also one of the finest example of how to use MySpace properly. Rock, robot, rock.
[Thanks Robbo!]
Here’s a really well done minidocumentary about robot builders, done up by our buds at Trossen Robotics. Edited and shot by Jennero Rossi, a Trossen Minion, valuable helper at RoboGames and a hell of a great guy, this short illustrates what it is to be a robot builder, where it can take you, and how you don’t need to be a PhD or engineer to get started.
Full Disclosure: Trossen Robotics is one of the dedicated long time sponsors for RoboGames, so please buy some robot stuff from them. Then come to RoboGames to test it out!
Or “Your-Plastic-Pal-that-plumbs-the-very-depths-of-The-Uncanny-Valley-who-might-also-be-fun-to-be-with-once-the-screaming-has-stopped”:
Seriously people, I love Japan. Can anyone give us a quick translation of the conversation?
[Via @thinkgeek]
So ::sob:: beautiful ::weep::
Courtesy those masters of modern problem solving techniques, Willow Garage (proud and beloved Sponsors of RoboGames, full disclosure, natch)
Israeli Scientists are doing a thing with some handshake robots, it should be cool (sorry for the lack of liguistic precision but it’s late and I’m tired and PopSci has done a better job on this anyway).
Image Courtesy Robot Magazine
From Popular Science:
Sure, you can make a robot walk or cook or even play beer pong, but can you make a robot friendly? Ben-Gurion University of the Negev wants to know, so the Israeli university will host the world’s first international competition to build a robot that can shake a human hand.
This is actually a lot cooler than it sounds, because handshaking is a more complex problem than puny humans realize. The conditions, pressure, etc are different every time; differences between hands necessitate decision-making on the fly and – okay remember what I said before? They do a better job explaining things over there at the bigfancy tech magazine, so read and enjoy.
I will indulge in one wholesome and heart-swelling demonstration of sentiment and say that it would be super swell if the folks who sign up for this competition refine their creations, and come to RoboGames 201l as a lovely demonstration of symbolic friendship and brother hood across all nations, creeds and climes. Science and love conquer all.
Yeeegh okay that’s enough. Back to the carnage-loving and haphazard robotic reporting so near and dear to this website’s heart. LOOK! Here’s a contest that rewards the robot who does the most inefficient and laboriously done trivial task! Stupid robot trick yeah!
Okay now I really have to go to bed.
Moreover, this was built by RoboGames Regular and Lego aficionado extraordinaire, Steve Hasseplug
You can see MonsterChess in action at Brickworld 2010 this weekend in Chicago.
Jameco Electronics, find purveyors of components, useful bits and pieces, and things that go “bing!”, has a nice review of exactly how much fun they had at RoboGames 2010.
[apologies for the extreme lateness of this post, but if you were following my twitter feed, yo will note that my upgrade horcked all over me the other afternoon and thusly I will appease the Blogging Gods by actually posting here more often.]
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