The LEGO Mindstorms NXT "gag order" is finally up! Now all the privileged few that gained access to the holy grail, Mindstorms Developer Program (MDP), can share the glories of their lifestyle. We're written previously about our favorite NXT site, The NXT Step blog, run by Jim. Jim has ag…
There's been lots of rumors swarming around that Radio Shack was killing the VEX Robotics line of toys. I got some news a month or so ago, but hesitated to post about it since it was totally unconfirmed. However, most of the VEX stock in my area was placed on deep discount and sold within a weekend…
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…
A while back we posted about an interview with Colin Angle, the co-founder and CEO of iRobot. Next up is an interview with Helen Greiner, co-founder and chairman of iRobot. Greiner discusses founding iRobot, her interest in robots (started with R2D2), and iRobot's biggest setback (late night robot…
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…
The Carnegie Mellon's National Robotics Engineering Center has announced it's plans to announce (yeah, marketing is crazy) "Crusher", its latest unmanned ground combat vehicle, to the public on April 28th. The project, which is funded by DARPA and the Army was designed to cut down casuali…
The NY Times has an excellent article on NASA's foray into the Grand Challenge model of research and development. Instead of paying millions to contractors to develop new technologies, why not sponsor contests and only pay the winners? Folks have fun and NASA gets tons of cheap R&D. [T]he ag…
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…
Thing have been pretty stressful at the GoRobotics.net World Headquarters as of late. First I got engaged in early March, and then my father passed away in late March. Due to that I've taken a bit of a hiatus from blogging, but I think I'll get back into it now. And so this post isn't completely…
There is such a wide variety of resources on the 'net that sometimes good ones go unchecked. One example of this is MIT's OpenCourseWare. If you have not seen it, now is a good time. Five years ago today, in an unprecedented step toward making knowledge accessible worldwide, MIT announce…
There comes a time in every mini-sumo match when you know it’s over. Your robot has went head-to-head with their robot, and your robot is slowly slipping backwards. Right about this time, you’ll get a sinking feeling in your stomach. This is because you know that -- in no more than a se…
Can you code a mean Java hack? Are you into Robosapien V2? Will you be in Johannesburg in May?If so, then consider joining in the Robosapien programming contest at Sun Tech Days. Using Starship System's Java SDK, participants will compete on getting their robots to do, well, cool things. And what i…
Tom Atwood, over at Robot Magazine, has put a review of the Robotis Bioloid "edutainment" robot kit on their website. You can also find more information on Robotis' website, though, be warned that it's a Korean company and the "English" version is a bit confusing. ROBOT Magazine recently took a clo…
This morning I awoke to find an email in my inbox from LEGO. The email says: To thank you for your interest in the Developer Program, LEGO Shop at Home is giving you the exclusive opportunity to reserve your LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT ste today - before pre-orders are available to the public! And by …
A partnership between WowWee Toys and Evolution Robotics was just announced today. You can read the official press release here. The release says that WowWee will be incorporating some of Evolution's technologies, specifically their Visual Pattern Recognition (ViPR) software and their localization …
Jim Kelly, over at our favorite LEGO Mindstorms NXT blog, The NXT Step, is putting together a "shopping list" of questions that folks have about Mindstorms NXT and the Mindstorms Development Program (MDP). Jim is one of the lucky few that actually made it into the program. However, the MDPers are u…
