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.

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.

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.

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.

Oh, thats very hard to say. I enjoyed them all. I think I’ve to say Phoenix was the project I enjoyed most.

A full humanoid biped, a new hexapod and or a new quad…

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.

So tune in! Wednesday July 13th, 9pm Eastern 6pm Pacific

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:

After reading this article I immediately visited this tv-tropes piece, knowing all-well that I could suffer a similar fate as this fellow.

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.“

Now please, stop asking us about pleasure bots.

I blame the Svedka robot.

*Apologies to BoingBoing

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!

Special thanks to Make Magazine.

The Tiller Girls are the work of Louis-Phillippe Demers, A robotic artist that creates works and wins prestige under the name The Processing Plant.

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!

(Credit to Lem Fugitt and robots-dreams.com for the footage)

Lastly, a quick thank-you to our sponsors:

Google, Jameco, TechShop, The Robot MarketPlace, Neato Robotics, Willow Garage, Servo Magazine, Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories, Innovati, Robots-Dreams and FingerTech Robotics!

Check out more RoboGames coverage!
Jameco RoboGames Update
Wired RoboGames Coverage
IEEE – Humanoids at RoboGames
nerdsinbabeland.com

-The Intern