Well, it looks like meth lab perps are getting all fancy on law enforcement and boobytrapping their operations. We get a story out of the St. Louis area about a bomb removal robot getting put to good use. "... RMI-9WT Bomb Removal Robot, owned by St. Louis County police, ... detonated the [bo…
Here's a neat article about the UNC Hospital (just down the road from me) using Da Vinci surgery 'bots to treat cervical cancer. Doctors there think that robots are one of the best ways of doing a hysterectomy. One patient said, "I had surgery July 1 on Friday and came home on Saturday."…
Much apologies for not covering this sooner, but the final results from RobotCup 2005 have been released. The Small Size league winners are predictable - Germany (FU-Fighters), Cornell (Cornell Big Red), and Singapore (Field Rangers). First place for Middle Size goes to Japan, and first place in 4-…
The Lincoln Journal Star Online has an interesting article about telepresence doctor bots. The idea is that a doctor can check up on his patients without ever leaving the office, by way of a two way video conferencing robot. The way I see it, now he can bill you $500 dollars for that 5 minute (an…
It appears that New York Times journalists have all the luck, because this one got to review the latest from ZMP Inc., a cute yellow walking robot pal. Of course, the one central glowing eye does seem a bit spooky, but that's beside the point. Nuvo, who sells for about $6,000 (ouch) is, "mar…
When I first read that page title on Delicious I had visions of metal coils and current and ... dancing. However, I was wrong! Behold, a quicktime video of our favorite 80's cartoons breakdancing. Also, in related news, Transformers is going to be made into a movie. Oh the suspense!
The latest online issue of Sensors & Transducers Magazine is now available. Featuring a nifty little transaxel accelerometer, with a "sensitivity of 5 mV/g and a measurement range of В±1000 g peak", a "strain guage direct to PC" device, and a paper on remote ele…
News.com has done an excellent interview with iRobot's Colin Angle. About Roomba, Angle says the "... company has shipped 1.2 million Roombas", and that, "... we'll be announcing an API of sorts for it." That confirms our earlier post about it. On the "dissing Japan"…
I will make no commentary ...
This is a shout out to all my students from the Duke TIP 2005 Robotics class! These guys just spent the last three weeks spending 7 hours a day building robots. That's hard core. Congratz are also in order for the originator of the curriculum, and my co-instructor, Ken Boone. We spent the …
I first found out about the Leaf Project about a one month ago when John Edwards showed off his newly constructed base for a robot built on the open source Leaf Project - A robotics project using artificial intelligence and vision. I later contacted John via e-mail to get his input on the project.…
Update: iRobot is going to relase the "hacking kit" sometime in November I was flipping through Business 2.0 and came across this about the Roomba: Ever wish you could dispatch a robot to grab you a beer? That day might soon be here, thanks to an as-yet-unannounced decision by iRobot. In e…
This is a little how-to guide on crimping connectors for various electronics projects. The art of crimping is sometimes a difficult one, but necessary for 1) reliable and 2) decent looking connections. Breadboards are nice for quick wiring projects but in the long run they are unreliable and look …
Everyone's favorite robots+art exhibit, Artbots, has announced it's exhibitors for this years show, to be held in Dublin, Ireland on July 15-17, 2005. 22 exhibits were chosen which encompass 33 different artists from 10 different countries. You can view a full list of exhibitors here. The projects…
Dragon Runner - military.comTwo news stories about robots in the military and how they are helping to save our soldiers lives: The first story, says that the enemy is wising up to their mechanical adversaries and are starting to target them. Better a robot than a soldier. The story focus' on the D…
I never could have imagined that circuit components could make such attractive jewelery. Seriously. Not only do I (a male) find it really geeky and hot but I have it from a reliable female source (my not too geeky girlfriend) that it's also quite cute. My favorite would have to be the diode choker…
