The Citoen C4 robot is not new but here's a little compilation of this advertising gem for those who've never seen it on TV or don't live in France. The concept: to design a pretty cool transformer robot that dances then metamorphoses into its original state, a car. The advertising has been done …
RobotShop.ca has a special promotion on for Aquabot swimming pool cleaning robots. If you order your pool cleaning robot before August 31, 2010, you'll automatically be in with a chance of winning the value of the Aquabot Pool Cleaner Junior. Better still! If you order this Aquabot Pool Cleaner J…
photo wikipedia Rodney Brooks, robotics professor at MIT and cofounder of the iRobot company in 1990, has received the highest distinction from SME (Society of Manufacturing Engineers). Brooks has received Honorary Membership. SME is a professional organization of engineers created in 1932 in …
After the excellent choreography of the best of hexapod robots in 2009, now here's the Best of 2010. These 6 legged robots have soul and move to the beat. Moreover, it's a popular phenomenon since other robots will dance to the rhythm of electronic music this Friday night in Montreal, in WE ARE R…
Ji-Dong Yim and Chris Shaw, two researchers at Simon Fraser University have developed a telephone robot capable of walking, expressing emotions and even being used as a telepresence robot. Callo, which is 23 cm tall, is mounted on a Nokia cell phone. It has two arms, legs and can even dance. Y…
The oldest brand of soda by Uncle Sam (1885), Dr Pepper, has decided to make a joint commercial with Iron Man. In it we see an employee in the middle of cleaning when his name is called by a voice. Then comes a rapid transformation with a robotic bodysuit, like in the Iron Man 2 film. But no s…
Willow Garage, whose progress we cover on this blog, just announced the eleven recipients of its PR2 robot. The PR2 robot is an open source robot which is characterized by a hardware platform (Personal Robot 2) with an ROS (Robot Operating System) open source software application. Willow Garage …
The Osaka Institute of Technology has created a humanoid robot called JoiTech. The robot which is almost as tall as a man - between 1.30 m and 1.60 m - has been designed with the aim of playing football. It made its first appearance at the Japanese 2010 Robocup. JoiTech has 22 degrees of freed…
Do you remember the acrobat robot? Now here's another more advanced version with BallP which can even withstand heavy loads without falling. BallP, which is 51 cm tall (20 inches) and weighs 7.5 kg (16.5 pounds), balances on a ball with the help of 3 stabilizer wheels, gyroscopes, micro-control…
Here's a particularly interesting video in terms of thinking about robotics :-) A robot attempting to solve a Rubik's Cube. To begin with, it works rather well... until the cube falls and the robot loses its patience. Then suddenly it attacks the Rubik's cube! We assure you, it's funny, and wel…
The video below shows three industrial robots in the process of sorting and placing salami of the Peperami brand (mini pepperoni). The speed of execution enables an increase in productivity of +25% compared to the work being done by a human chain. The FlexPicker by ABB Robotics can pick up thre…
This Friday May 7, the Society for Arts and Technology in Montreal [SAT], the ETS (a leading engineering school for industry) and ABB Robotics (a leader in the robotics industry) are organizing a night of madness called WE ARE ROBOTS. The program: electronic music with DJs Akufen, Stephen Beaupr…
The Sharp range sensors, GP2Y0A02YK IR and GP2D120 IR, are not that easy to find at the moment but RobotShop has just received a good supply of these components! Hurry up, it's likely to be a gold rush! As a reminder, the GP2Y0A02YK IR is an infrared range sensor, with a distance range of 20 to…
Here's an example of an application of an interface using the Apple iPad to store then retransmit commands to an industrial robot (arm). The technician first writes a "Robot" text on the iPad, then stores it. Then it sends the information to its iPhone which retransmits the command to the robot. …
We've already seen cats which took pleasure in walking on the Roomba. But this is quite unheard of, it could be a first: a turtle on the iRobot vacuum cleaner! She seems to be really enjoying the walk because she doesn't look like she wants to try to get back down, except at the end of the vide…
The little Zibits robots are landing at RobotShop. And at a small price: less than 10 dollars. These mini robots are controlled remotely with a small joystick. Zibits are actually little collectible toys available in various different versions (design, shape, color). They can move straight ahe…
