This this this this this this THIS.

[Goth Robot Dance Of Your Choice Goes Here]

[Thanks Josh.0 for the best rendition of the robot I have ever seen in my life, ever.]

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.

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

In the spirit of “Scent Of A Robot” by Pete Miser and with all of the awesome hipster cheesiness you can pack into a trucker hat, we bring you “Me And My Robots”

This short film is a contender for the very first Robot Film Festival, about which we are super excited, and about which more in a bit.

Love robots? Now they can love you back!

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.

It wants them BIGGER, PRECIOUS:

Video courtesy RobotCity

Can you freaking *imagine* huge, buzzing quadrotors on a skyscraper building site somewhere in Southeast Asia (I can only imagine it would happen in Southeast Asia first for some reason)? It would be so Terminator.

Granted, it’s *really* hard to scale up this sort of machinery (ask any humanoid developer) but the day when the low rumble of back-hoe sized armies of autonomous, insect-like manipulation robots capable of multiple degrees of movement and bent on their one and only overriding task will soon be at hand! Whee!

Video done up by Daniel Mellinger at the University Of Pennsylvania, Philly, creating tomorrow’s robot world domination today!

[Thanks New Scientist!]

Just look at it. Then go out and build your own.

*Apologies to BoingBoing

Too lazy to learn how to play an instrument? Then let the good ol’ folks at the University of Tokyo and Sony Computer Science Labs do it for you!

The project’s name is PossessedHand and it allows control over someone’s hand via electrical muscle stimuli!

As well as helping would-be musicians, PossessedHand could be used to rehabilitate people who have suffered a stroke or other injury that impairs muscle control. Therapists already use electrical muscle stimulation to help these people, but existing non-invasive devices can only achieve crude movements such as contracting the entire arm.

Fighting an autocratic regime? Have a few things lying around in your machine shop? Why not create a rebel war robot to kill time while you fight vociferously for your cause? The whole world is watching!

All kidding aside, this piece from Al-Jazeera English shows rebel engineers building, among other things, armed power wheels, an ROV ammo resupply machine, and your basic shoulder mounted rocket launcher.

Notable quotes from ass-kicking Libyan engineering students:

“We want to use our weapons in a systematic way against those who take up arms against us. We hope they will not use their arms against civilians.”

“It’s strange going from being an engineering students to designing weapons, but we’ve seen many bad things in this war and I have to help the fighters and my people any way I can.”

“We don’t carry guns but we want to help save our people, budding ways which reduce loss of life, even against Gaddafi’s forces. Because we are against killing unless there is no choice, we don’t want to be like him and kill everyone.”

DIY shit just got real.

[Thanks Singularity Hub!]

Is the Rise of Wearable Electronics Finally Here?

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.

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

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!).

Lose a hand? No problem!
Yet another step closer to The Six Million Dollar Man, as an Austrian had his amputated hand replaced with a bionic limb!

“The patient, called “Milo”, aged 26, lost the use of his right hand in a motorcycle accident a decade ago.

After his stump heals in several weeks’ time, he will be fitted with a bionic hand which will be controlled by nerve signals in his own arm.”

The initial horror over an elective amputation was quickly overcome by intrigue over the mechanical new appendage:

“Such bionic hands, manufactured by the German prosthetics company Otto Bock, can pinch and grasp in response to signals from the brain that are picked up by two sensors placed over the skin above nerves in the forearm.”

Watching the video of another case in the article amazes me with how far the technology has come.

Previously, I was concerned with the plausibility of my USB-Hand that would allow high-fiving, fist bumps, and slapping people through the internet.

My dream yet lives.

-The Intern

As promised, we have news on the RoboGames 2011 TV special!
The show premieres on May 30th, 9PM on the SCIENCE channel!

Discovery Press has also published an excellent article going over the television show – Read Me!

Lastly, the awesome commercial, in all its robotty splendor:

(Thank you Robot Marketplace for the Youtube vid)

-The Intern

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!

(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

So mumble mumble behind in posting blah blah catch-up blarg overbooked blah excuses excuses blah blah Robot Round-Up yeehaw. Blah blah blah:

Robot Marathon blah blah Osaka prattle blab Vstone Japan blah Robovie blah blah Robot-Dreams blah blah ACTUAL INTERVIEW IN RUNNER’S WORLD (kinda) whoo robot athletes blah. [Pithy comment blah RoboGames blah blah]

Blah Cheetahbot blahblah vroom.

Blah Honda U3-X not as spylike as it sounds blah blah Honda Robotics sponsor us blah.

OMG BLAH WOOT PETER WELLER blah ROBOCOP STATUE ZOMGROXXORS VIDEO

Okay now that we are all caught up we over here, we will do our best to actually blog about something other than cocktail robots or RoboGames for a change. I promise.

[Thank you The BBC, Robots-Dreams, Vstone, Technabob, Runner's World, PopSci, Honda, and as always, LaughingSquid.]