Take a look at NASA's latest revision to it's Miniature Autonomous Extravehicular Robotic Camera (Mini AERCam) designed to help out spacecraft and ground crew see around and inside the spacecraft. The latest prototype, "nanosatelite", is 7.5 inches in diameter and weights around 10lbs. &…
The first time I heard about this guy, Theo Jansen, was in this news article. The video of one of his creations was amazing. Really amazing. "Theo Jansen creates unique machines that collect wind with their wings, and store the energy in bottles that he calls their stomachs." '"It …
Here's a pretty comprehensive article on Toshiba's quest for a "life support robot." They will be demoing the robots at the Prototype Robot Exhibition in Japan from June 9 to 19th. The will be demoing two robots - Robot one is able to recognize a specific voice in a crowd from any directi…
Check out the picture and tell me if it isn't a bit ... weird. No, not the guy, the woman - She's fake! She's yet another feature at the World Expo 2005 which we covered previously. It/she breaths in a human like manner, has 31 points of articulation in her torso, skin-like silicon covering, natu…
Well folks, here's your opportunity to fulfill all your childhood dreams of having a robotic helicopter. Check out the Cheap Robotic Helicopter Howto. The intro reads: This document explains how to build a 300 g, 3D-capable helicopter with embedded Linux and Bluetooth datalink for less than 500 EU…
Circle you calendars for June 28-30. AUVSI is putting on their annual robotics shindig! You can read the official press release or visit the website here. Highlights are said to include "150,000 square feet of hardware and static equipment displax," lots of cool talks, good networking, an…
I wish I were there: "Word is the robots are the stars of World Expo 2005. Japanese robots of various designs serve functional roles here as multilingual information guides, security guards, garbage collectors, and floor cleaners." "The Toyota exhibit has a two-part robot show featuring a robot j…
Mmmm hmmmm ... well, it's very bizzare looking. Not only does it have, "a woman's face, a sensor around its waist and can move in all directions on its three wheels hidden underneath an evening gown," but a very evident female body. Don't worry ladies, "a male version [is] under development." Oh …
It seems to me that this article is full of handwaving, but here goes - apparently, a doctor of Mechanical Engineering in the UK has come up with a self replicating rapid prototype machine, you know, the ones that can create anything by building up layers of plastic? His plans are to eventually mar…
Well, this is by far one of the more interesting robot sensing devices I've seen in a while. It's like your standard bump sensor whiskers on steroids. A group of researchers from schools that I can't pronounce have come up with the ultimate robot whiskers solution - a motor spins the whisker in a…
I have to say, the art of Arthur Ganson is some of the most amazing stuff I've seen in a long time. " Self-described as a cross between a mechanical engineer and a choreographer, Ganson creates contraptions composed of a range of materials from delicate wire to…
Yet another article about US FIRST. Dale at RobotHaven posted a nice round up of Sourceforge.net related robotics projects. It looks like the folks from Whitebox Robotics have started a company blog. First post entitled "The White Box Robotics PC-BOT Manifesto". Oh, and they've also upd…
Today I went to Atmel's 2005 Microcontroller Seminar series in my lovely homeown. I usually like to attend these because 1) they give away cool stuff and 2) there is usually a good lunch involved. This time 'round I didn't win anything, but the lunch was good. They gave out their (now) standard …
In this article, Jean-Christophe shows you how to maximize the utility you get out of a Sharp GPD12 rangefinder. Overview: This application note is intended to provide a good overview of the Sharp GP2D12 sensor (Fig. 1) and its use, especially for dynamics application. I hope it will…
Craig Gardner shows you how to build an infrared remote decoder - control your robot with a TV remote! Adding a form of remote control to your robot can be fun but radio can sometimes be over kill. Infrared such as used for your TV, VCR and other equipment is a simple way to add control to a proj…
Zac Soden reviews Combat Robots Complete UNLESS you have pay TV, there is not much coverage of robotic combat here in Australia. Of course there is the occasional airing of Robot Wars, but other than that we don't get much exposure to this quite fast growing sport. This lack of exposure also mea…
