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Posts Tagged ‘Robot of the Week’

With its own theme song to boot

Several of them have been chronicled in these pages — click here for a clip of BigDog scrambling to regain its balance after slipping on a patch of ice, for instance. But the below video has the added bonus of a new bluesy theme song, with a beat seemingly written to match BigDog’s jaunty gait.

BigDog uses a system of hyper-responsive hydraulic joints, sensors, accelerometers and gyroscopes to keep it on its four legs. Boston Dynamics says the creature can run at 4 mph, climb slopes up to 35 degrees, walk across a wide range of terrain, and carry 340 pounds. It’s designed to go wherever humans would go, carrying their load without complaint or the urge to sniff the ground every six inches. It’s funded by DARPA, naturally.

In pup mode, it performs a doglike “let’s-play” stretch; later in its life, it gets down to business, leaping like a greyhound and tromping through the snow like an AT-AT walker. Turn up the sound and check it out.

Paraswift, as it’s called, rolls up the main building at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in the video below. It doesn’t need the red carpet, but its builders at ETH Zurich get style points for that touch.

Unlike other wall-climbing tech based on vacuum suction, the robot uses a low pressure gradient to stick to the wall. Paraswift uses an impeller, a rotor spinning in a tube, to create a low pressure vortex like the center of a tornado. This creates a partial vacuum that adheres the robot to the wall, as explained by ETH Zurich. The wheels stay in contact with the surface to be climbed, and the vortex holds the robot to the wall, so there’s no need to create a vacuum seal.

It was built for fun in a collaboration with Disney Research, which has been exploring new robot designs for use in its theme parks. But it could conceivably be used to capture aerial footage or test new robot landing systems.

As the video shows, Paraswift unfurls its parachute before it jumps off, which ensures it has time to position properly for a safe landing. In that sense, it’s not a true base jumper. But impressive nonetheless.

[via Tech Crunch]

Robot shows signs of intelligence

In the video below, programmers at Trossen Robotics have some fun with the Astroboy-looking open-source robot, trying to get him to choose between two cans of beer. He marches toward the Tecate can with dogged determination, stopping when he reaches the can and kicking it over with gusto. Perhaps he’s still programmed to play robo-soccer?


Responding to blue versus red probably has something to do with it. But there’s something adorable/creepy about his wide-eyed pursuit of the precious can. Now I want to see him choose between Tecate and a small-batch craft beer.

[via IEEE Spectrum]

Ten times speedier than the deftest human butchers

Automatic chicken deboners are often faster than humans, but often do a poor job of butchering, as they have difficulty adjusting to the different sizes and shapes of poultry. You can't simply cut every chicken in the same place, to the same depth, in the same way--you'll end up with some good birds and some mangled birds. The Mayekawa addresses that problem with a custom-built camera setup that analyzes each chicken and then adjusts the butchering so as to cut to the right depth and in the right place.

Here's some video of the Mayekawa deboner in action. It's pretty bloodless and mechanical, being a butchering robot and all, but there is definitely still footage of a chicken carcass being yanked from its bones, so if you're put off by that kind of thing, beware. Oh, and if you can't get enough robot-deboning, check out the Mayekawa ham de-boner, which is significantly stabbier than this chicken version.

[YouTube via DigInfo]

But won't you feel silly when it scampers away

Controlled with a Wii remote, CanBot can do a few pretty cool things. For one, it can transform from an unassuming tallboy to a walking robot that shuffles across surfaces on three servo-powered legs. Those legs can also initiate and control rolling, for a slightly faster mode of transit.

Right, so it’s a beer can that can roll. Perhaps CanBot isn’t the future of robotics, but as you will see in the video below it’s great for charming the hell out of kids and is probably a fantastic conversation starter for your next outdoor barbecue. And this way when you set your beer down and it “disappears,” no one can definitively dispute that maybe, just maybe, it sprouted legs and walked away.

[Singularity Hub]

A miniature working replica of a delta assembly line

Constructed from Lego NXT components, this model of a working robotic factory system has four flexible arms (capable of motion in three dimensions) each packing a pneumatic gripper that can pick things off the line and sort them into the appropriate spaces. Two conveyor belts fitted with light sensors send colored blocks down the line while simultaneously relaying their color and positions to the arms, which snatch them up and sort them at a rate of 48 blocks per minute.

These kinds of systems are common in manufacturing facilities and other centers of industry, but to create one with Legos and simple light signals very astute blending of both building block prowess and computational cleverness. After all, these robotic arms are smart. Not only do they know what color an incoming block is, but they know where it will be at what time and have the patience to wait for it. They even account for the little bit of extra forward motion the conveyor belt imparts to the block at liftoff.

For a full rundown of the project, check out Shepherd’s Tinkernology blog.

[Singularity Hub]

This gleaming black hexapod could be yours to command

It has only two servos per leg, one for vertical control and one for horizontal, which reduces costs. A system of springs and bar linkages gives the robot added flexibility, according to the Japanese robot blog Robots Dreams. It is designed to handle uneven terrain, although it’s pretty impressive to watch it march, goose-step-style, on a flat surface.

Along with the hexapod kit, Kondo will sell individual legs and parts, so home robot builders can design whatever they want — like heads or tails for cameras, sensors, grippers and other uses. The spider-bot will set you back 76,000 yen, or about $880. Kondo expects to begin shipments in early May, targeting the education and hobbyist markets.

[Robots Dreams]