A group of scientists at MIT are working on a gas engine about the size of a quarter. Better yet, it's made out of sillicon. The device, who's individual pieces are all working, still needs to be fully assembled and tested. The engines components, like a combustion chamber, compressor, and turbine,…
On Friday CMU announced via press relase the creation of the "Ballbot" (original, I know). It's a robot that dynamically balances on one steel ball. It was picked up by several robot websites and was also featured on RocketBoom. That's all fine and good, until someone cries "fowl!&…
A couple of notable interviews hit the web today.The first is Astrobiology Magazine's interview with Alex Ellery. Ellery heads the Surrey Space Centre's Robotics group and is taking part in the European Space Agency's ExoMars project. The second comes from BusinessWeek, who interviews Tatsuya Matsu…
Biomimetics is off and looking at practically anything for inspiration. Insects are a particular favorite, of course, particularly those that fly, climb, and perform other gravity-defying tricks.Take the fly, for instance. How does it walk upside down? German researchers recently proved that flies …
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have created a team of unmanned aerial and ground vehicles that work together as a team to locate targets in an urban environment. The aerial vehicles have one high resolution camera that is able to view a large area, but only with a 6m accuracy. The g…
Scientists at the University of Nebrask have created a tactile sensor that is just as sensitive as a human fingertip. "The resolution of a human fingertip is about 40 microns, about half the diameter of a human hair." The device works by sandwiching a layer of semicondcuting nano-particl…
A team of scientists from Italy, Germany, the UK, and Greece have designed a robot that is to be used to maneuver through your intestines. They have a demo video of it crawling its way through a pig's gut and wriggling over sand. The robot is designed to mimic the behavior of a worms, which are…
A group of undergraduate students at MIT have constructed a number of spherical droids to operate in the International Space Station. The program, dubbed SPHERES, is run by David Miller and is sponsored by DARPA. The spheres are powered by compressed CO2 thrusters and are about the size of a volley…
I know this is a little late, but nonetheless very interesting: a robotic birth simulator. Noelle, the simulators name, is a full-sized life-like robot used in birthing training. Gaumard, the company that makes the simulator, sells the whole package for $20,000 USD.She can be programmed for a…
The AP has an interesting piece on Carnegie Mellon's snake robots. The research, lead by Howie Choset, is aimed at disaster situations where a small snake could maneuver much better than a resuce worker. "Right now, the way to get to these trapped survivors is to pull the rubble out one rock…
A group of scientists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology are working on yet another ultralight flying machine. The robot, currently with a 14" wingspan, is designed to fly around in indoor environment. Such environments present special problems for navigation.The researchers are tryi…
A group of researchers at Rice University and the University of Southern California are working on creating a power source that is run off of bacteria that spits out electrons. The Shewanella oneidensis microorganism consumes metal and produces a waste product of electrons. In a fuel cell, th…
Researchers at the University of Texas have created artificial muscles that are 100 times more powerful that human muscles. The two different types of muscles both consume Oxygen and release the energy in hydrogen and alcohol to do work. One version converts the chemical energy into heat which cont…
It looks like Spirit, one of the Mars rovers, has gotten itself in a bad situation. It's exploring an interesting feature on Mars called "Home Plate", but the Martian winter is coming on, which means low temperatures and low light levels. Scientists would love to say and continue explorin…
There is a video on New Scientist that shows a robot climbing a tree and other vertical surfaces. This is from the RiSE initiative, a descendent of the BR MURI project. BR MURI, Biomimetic Robots Multi-University Research Initiative, focused on building legged robots that ran. The goal of RiSE, Rob…
A group of students and faculty at Dartmouth University College have created a robot to function in arctic weather and is solar powered. Such a robot was comissioned by NASA to aid in research in the antarctic. NASA's goal is to use the robot to search for evidence of bacteria in Antarctic snow. T…
