Hurray for Happy Steampunk Robot Magnets! They are adorable and fun, loaded with delight for all the steampunk lovin’, magnet-noodlin’, fridge-door hangin’ folks in your kitchen!
They were thought up and done by the fine folks at Neatorama, who absolutely *promised* they would take the electrodes off my chihuahua and get my power tools back from the scrapyard the very *minute* I told EVERYONE I KNOW about them! Whee!!
There are many cute robots to chose from, they do jolly dances as you make your morning tea! Love them and their nutty boltiness!
Please write to them and say that you just love their steampunk robots, and that you would like to buy them by the gross, otherwise their hands might slip and HAHAHAHAHA OOPS CRISPY @LILFOO! Hahaha! those wacky, wacky Neatorama guys. Wacky.
Oh god please help they have my dog and my mig welder
It’s the dramatic on-pull of the sensory vest that gets me every time.
Thanks Science Seminars for the link, also for the comment “It is creepy and sounds like a toilet.”
*It should not automatically be construed that The Rotor’s mysterious, regrettable disappearance had anything to do with the aforementioned exclamation. Although if it were construed, automatically or not, it could be neither confirmed or denied. All we know is that he’s gone and WE KNOW NOTHING, OKAY?
I came across Zenta’s Robotic Creations blog while looking up information on my own biped, and my jealousy meter is off the charts.
Just watch this video – Words, I have none.
Working with similar robots, I can only hope that one day I can make them move that smooth and agile.
Zenta’s latest project is a morphing robot. That’s right, a MORPHING ROBOT.
I tossed this brilliant Norwegian a few questions, and he was nice enough to get back to me!
What’s your background and how did you get into robotics?
My background is engineering. I’ve always been fascinated by all kind of robots since I was about 6 or 7 years. (I’m now 38 year) .I began building robots very early, using mostly meccano. At some point I found meccano a bit limiting and started making custom parts. But I didn’t get more serious into hobby robots before 2006 when I started on my rather famous Phoenix hexapod.
You mention in your blog that Archer is your first biped, why did you decide to construct a biped rather than continue your work with hexapod (and similar) projects? What are the different problems you run into when designing a biped versus designing a robot with more than two legs?
The main reason for why I wanted to construct a biped is that I had some ideas of how to control it using Inverse Kinematics (IK) based on the current code used for controlling hexapods. The main difference is balancing/stability. Also gear-slope/backlash in the gear of the servos is a challenge on bipeds. Keeping the weight as low as possible is also more important on bipeds. When it comes to stability I tried solving that on Archer by simply moving electronics and battery from side to side.
Your new hexapod, MorpHex, looks absolutely amazing. How did you come up with its unique design, and what difficulties you encountered and how they were overcome?
Thanks, glad you liked it! I got the idea for building MorpHex for over a year ago. Mainy I got the idea watching my two eldest kids playing with Bakugan and I thought it would be cool to make a hexapod that could transform into a sphere and back to a hex again. I’m still working on MorpHex, you can see what I’ve accomplished so far on my blog. The main challenge with MorpHex was to make the variable sized body, the body needed to expand for making more space between the leg sections. There has been several difficulties during the making of MorpHex. At some point I considered to end the project, so I had to do some changes to the leg design for making the robot less heavy and also for removing some conflict between the sphere sections.
A lot of your robots seem incredibly lifelike and fluid in their movement, how did you manage to accomplish this?
The smooth movement are simply accomplished by accurate control, correct math and correct timing. Jeroen Janssen’s work on the Phoenix hexapod Basic Atom Pro code make this rather easy to accomplish. Instead of using a PS2 controller, I’m using a custom made remote controller. The remote controller play a big role for accurate control.
Of all your previous projects, which one did you enjoy working on the most?
Oh, thats very hard to say. I enjoyed them all. I think I’ve to say Phoenix was the project I enjoyed most.
What future projects are you looking forward to working on?
A full humanoid biped, a new hexapod and or a new quad…
Lastly, if someone is interested in robotics, but has relatively little hands-on experience, where would you recommend they start?
Lego mindstorm or VEX Robotic System is a very good plattfom. I’ve to say I’ve not worked with either of them. But I plan to introduce Lego Mindstorm for my kids one day. Also, a hex or biped Brat kit from Lynxmotion is a good start.
Everyone watch this one, because not only it is the same superlative show they always put up, BUT: It’s about Robots AND: I, Me, @missysb going to be on it. Theoretically. Unless I get accidentally set on fire or eaten by chuds on the way there.
Welcome to Hooman Samani’s Lovotics – an area of research dealing with human-to-robot relations.
Across 11 research papers, Samani has outlined — and begun to develop — an extremely complex artificial intelligence that simulates psychological and biological systems behind human love. To do this, Samani’s robots are equipped with artificial versions of the human “love” hormones — Oxytocin, Dopamine, Seratonin, and Endorphin — that can increase or decrease, depending on their state of love. On a psychological level, by using MRI scans of human brains to mirror the psychology of love, the robots are also equipped with an artificial intelligence that tracks their “affective state”; their level of affection for their human lover.
Observe as this lovely combination of R2D2 and Roomba strives for your affection:
I came to the conclusion that one of my favorite responses to “What is this thing you call love?” was from a jolly assassin droid by the name of HK-47:
“Definition: ‘Love’ is making a shot to the knees of a target 120 kilometers away using an Aratech sniper rifle with a tri-light scope. Statement: This definition, I am told, is subject to interpretation. Obviously, love is a matter of odds. Not many meatbags could make such a shot, and fewer would derive love from it. Yet for me, love is knowing your target, putting them in your targeting reticle, and together, achieving a singular purpose, against statistically long odds.“
Check out this article by Phillip Torrone chronicling the development of wearable electronic tech - Ranging from music and video players/recording devices, to a huge variety of USB devices, and much much more!
I’ve always wanted to utilize my wrist real estate to my shoes for electronics of some kind. Many of the “wearables” I’m going to share are from my project archives, some are now “real,” and others are products that are out now. I think we’re finally entering an era where wearable electronics can look good and work well.
Mentioned in an earlier post dissecting Hero Jr., Jeri Ellsworth spotted in the depths of this article, this time with her Nintendo Purse!
Autonomous chorus line of precision Busby Berkeley-style tap dancing robots that don’t appear to have much personality on an individual basis, but boy can they flock.
The excessively intelligent and infuriatingly productive Jeri Ellsworth goes over her new-to-her Heathkit Hero Jr., lovingly extracted from here in the depths of the Robunker (We have five more. Get ‘em while they’re cutely obsolete!).
The sound of hundreds of pounds of metal slamming into each other, and the smell of burning rubber and fried electronics finally fades.
It’s been three weeks since the annual International RoboGames took place, and I think my hearing is finally back.
This year’s annual RoboGames was a huge success, and we’d like to thank everyone for coming down to the San Mateo Event Center and hope to see you again in October for The ComBots Cup!
For those not familiar, RoboGames is the world’s largest robotics competition! The 3-day extravaganza featured 239 teams from 17 countries competing in 59 separate events; including soccer, hockey, sumo, fire-fighting, kung-fu, and the ever popular (and dangerous) combat robots!
I’d like to send out a special thanks to the crazy Brazilian teams that showed up, as well as the Japanese teams that made the long trek out despite the obvious complications at home.
As an added bonus we were joined by Grant Imahara (of Mythbusters fame) and The Science Channel. They were filming a TV special that is set to air on Memorial Day Weekend, more news as we get it!
For those that want to check out what they missed (or relive what they saw), YouTube is overflowing with RoboGames videos:
Make sure to check out the combat, as well as humanoid events!
Update: HOLY NUGGETS! WE DID IT! AND WITH FIVE DAYS TO GO!
You all win at cocktail robots, thanks a ton to our backers, each and every one!
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Lend us you ears! And your antennas! And your sonar sensors, and photovoltaics, and . . .whatever. So, we have thins fun and exciting event coming up, which is completely awesome any way you slice it, but even awesome if you are in the greater San Francisco bay Area and can actually go:
BARBOT 2011!
A lost weekend of cocktail robotics
April 1-2, 2011
9pm-2am
Parisoma Innovation Loft
169 11th Street, San Francisco
21+ with photo ID $10 advance / $15 at door Buy Tickets here!
And that’s all neat and everything, but before we get there, we have to get the actual robots there and working! So, please have a gander at this here Kickstarter thingy we have set up to get the last little shreds of money to have the most amazing BarBot OMG EVAR:
GIVE US YOUR POCKET CHANGE HERE AND MAKE THE ROBOTS HAPPY
Kickstarter is the darndest thing, We have been up for a day and are over halfway to our goal of $743!
That’s right, we just need $292 dollars to be TOTALLY FREAKING FUNDED!
Nice people who send us a buck get heartfelt thanks and updates, people who get more get even *more* heartfelt thanks and updates, plus cool robot stickers, buttons and lots of other neat things that make *you* part of this project! Tell your friends! Tell your enemies! Tell your cocktail robot loving dog! Help us get the word out, and you can say you knew us back when! Yay!
BarBot 2011 would also at this time like to thank Red Bull USA, who are being awesome and generously supporting Barbot 2011.
Red Bull gives *my* robot wings, how about yours?
This event would not, literally, be happening without them stepping up and raising a glass to cocktail robots everywhere. Like them on the Facebooks, @ them on the Twitters, and tell ‘em we sent ya!
The BBC has a small piece on Polar Bears whaling on remote-controlled robotic cameras designed to unobtrusively chart the bears in their natural habitat in Svalbard, Norway. This splendid piece of observation and film-making yielded some really gorgeous footage of polar bears being polar bears*, which includes some spectacular ingenuity in the field of tearing the living hell out of the electronics.
HOLY MOLY(bdenum), Robo Bat Friends! Let me tell you about this new iPhone iPad iPod app for $2.99 that-
And I quote:
“Description
No 1 Staff Favorite in Japan!
LOVEBOTS by KIT ROBOT has arrived! The NEW Digital Robot Assembly Kit and Robot Avatar Creator, SUITABLE FOR ALL AGES.
Placing creative power in your hands! Join the loveBot
Presented by Award Winning WhiteWall Studios.
Forget the Golden Plastic Age of model kits, limiting the range of parts to one model and WELCOME to the Golden Digital Age.
Now Introducing LOVEBOTS, where you can create over 1.3 MILLION combinations of Robots out of the box!”
Check out the gallery of ideas on boingboing as there are lots of delicious and eye popping pictures to ponder while you get your iTunes on speed dial.
I leave you now with one final quote:
“We are asking LoveBot fans to send us their creations, as we plan to release The Art of LoveBots app book. “
It’s a very basic kit designed to use off-the-shelf parts as much as possible, to encourage people to play with the design or expand on it. I’ve gotten a lot of help and some cool ideas from the company founder, Dr. Karen Suhm, who coaches robotics teams in ROV-building competitions and generally knows everything about ROVs. The kit comes with a good set of underwater motors and a sensitive camera, and this summer I started modifying it to use an Arduino and joystick control, running the whole thing over Cat-5 cable (which significantly lightened the tether). This will also let me add other equipment, like a still camera, depth gauge, compass, and sonar.
Dig the binary zip-tie depth finder, O Dweeby Beloveds.
Also, Randall Munroe has been going through a thing or two lately, everybody head over to Xkcd and give him snuggles, just because.
Popular Science has an article about a clever use for a Turing Test bot: arguing with climate change deniers.
Getting into a climate change debate on Twitter could be even more exhausting than it sounds now that a software developer named Nigel Leck has automated the process. Tired of arguing with climate change deniers in 140 character quips, the programmer wrote a script to do it for him. Chatbot @AI_AGW scans Twitter every five minutes searching for hundreds of phrases that fit the usual denier argument paradigm. Then it serves them up some science.
Those responses are pulled from a database of hundreds of responses that the software matches up to the argument made by the original tweeter. Those who claim the entire solar system is warming are met with something like: “Sun’s output has barely changed since 1970 & is irrelevant to recent global warming” followed by a link to corresponding scientific research.
It doesn’t detect sarcasm, but as far as we can tell, neither do climate change deniers.
