Mars Rover Stuck After over five years of tireless service, the Mars rover Spirit is one again in trouble. Our long-lived martian friend now appears to be stuck in the sand. Spirit, which has been dragging an immobile wheel for nearly three years, has been circling a, "low plateau calle
Husbands and kids, at least you have something to look forward to in the future - Hauler MAT and his trash grabbing prowess. See more of Ben's art here.
A few weeks ago, the most excellent company, SparkFun hosted an autonomous vehicle competition at their building in Builder Colorado. The competition was open to all forms of autonomous vehicles and was race around the peremeter of the buildings. Chris Anderson from DIY Drones entered a flying veh…
  Move over R2D2, EM-6 is where it's at. See more of Ben's art here.
Festo, a German engineering company which brought us the stunning AirJelly, has now unveiled their latest project - life-like robo-penginus. Even better, there 's a swimming and a flying version. The penguins, which were designed to showcase a new mechanical linkage/control design for robotic a…
Robot Portraits by Ben Rollman Robots are cool. Pictures of robots are cool too. But, custom artwork of people as robots ... now that's very cool. If you agree, then Ben Rollman can help you out by creating a custom piece of fine art depecting you (or your favorite photo) as a robot. Case…
Finding decent SciFi/Robot shows on TV these days is pretty tough, especially since Battlestar Galactica finished up. Thankfully though, we have Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles - but maybe not for long. That's where you come in - Help Save Sarah Connor. The show just finished up its 2nd s…
Here are some stories I never got around to posting from the past ... long time: As if the forces of Junk Food weren't powerful enough, now we can look forward to social, roving, snack selling robots in our future, thanks to the work of Carnegie Mellon University. Bouncing Red Ball has…
 General Atomics Aeronautical Systems has unveiled it's latest version of the wildly popular Predator Drone - the Predator C Avenger. The Avenger, which made its first flight tests earlier this month, is expected to be a viable product within 10 - 12 months, and could be patrolling the un
Here's a fantastic walking robot costume for a small child. Check out the "build notes" after the jump. Just add some water or nerf guns and your kid will be the ultimate ruler of the neighborhood! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7I9v0EdhwlM L's chicken walking robot costume http://www.youtube.c…
NASA is working on an UAV to fly above the surface of mars and take high resolution video of the landscape below. The ARES mission will involve a 6.5 meter wingspan UAV that will cruise along 1 mile above the martian surface. The cameras on board are very high resolution, such that, "if there was…
After ten yeras, the array of creations made with the LEGO's Mindstorms kit is pretty impressive. One of the latest things to amaze me is this NXT 3D scanner created by Philo. The device uses several motors and linear actuators to probe the surface of an object and precisely record its shape. The …
Dvice and SciFi are sponsoring a Steampunk Cylon Contest. Your challenge is to design a steampunk style Cylon and submit a drawing or photo to SciFi before March 20th. Winners will win various Battlestar Galactica prizes. The Cylons were created by the people of the Twelve Colonies. Intelligent…
The LEGO company is producing a special, Limited Edition, version of the Mindstorms NXT brick. The brick will be black, and LEGO will only produce 1998 of them, to commemorate the creation of Mindstorms in 1998. Owners will get special goodies, like bragging rights, and special programs with the p…
Chris Grine claims he can draw 3 robots a week for a full year, thereby creating "165 'Bots With Stuff". His whimsical drawings will put a smile on your face and give you a good chuckle. I especially enjoy #006, "a robot with a warm tender heart" and "a robot with a distinct limp". Good wor…
Riding with Robots brings us a neat story of how NASA has recycled one of their missions, and turned it into another. The EPOXI (Extrasolar Planet Observation and Deep Impact Extended Investigation) mission utilizes the main vehicle from the Deep Impact mission to performan another series of expe…