Here's a really cute short film for your kids: L'Interprétation des rêves ou les aventures du robot bleu, (The interpretation of dreams or the adventures of the blue robot). This robot is unlike any other because it has no bolts! It's a Canadian animation film in stop motion by Elo…
Robotland reports that Europe has invested 600 million euros to date in robotics research. It's not specified since when; EURON, via its European robotics research program, has 900 participants involved in 120 projects. The researchers are interested in cognitive systems and vision, mobile and …
The Maker Faire 2010 just took place in Great Britain (March 12-21) and the UK Robot Group made the most of it by compiling a video of the best appearances at this event. The Maker Faire event is part of Science Fest, 10 days devoted to innovation and creativity in Newcastle. You will see: -Le…
The concept of Fireguard, a firefighter robot, was conceived by a German designer. Fireguard is not going to replace humans by extinguishing fires, but it will check out places where fires are. Equipped with a video camera on its head, it is controlled at a distance by firefighters who can asse…
Researchers at Meiji University in Japan have teamed up with MR Corp to build a robot which allows you to train in baseball. The robot holds the ball 20 cm in the air as if it was an invisible tee so the player only has to hit it. The Jet Hitter can store 70 balls. The designers have planned t…
RobotBox user jbot added a nifty blog post today about using his robot to paint with light. Inspired by images of Roomba's with LEDs, he added a set of LEDs to his robot, PlexiBot and took some long exposure photos as PlexiBot traveled around. The results are quite beautiful.
Researchers at McGill University in Montreal (Canada) have just created DNA nanotubes which can deliver "tiny drugs" to diseased cells. The method used: the researchers take the DNA out of its biological context and rather than using the genetic code for life, it acts as a kind of building block f…
The Biorobotics Lab at Carnegie Mellon University has just created an especially evolved prototype of a snake. This snake is able to climb on a vertical bar by crawling like a real snake would. It's one of the first prototypes of its kind in the world to achieve such a feat. http://www.youtube…
You'll be surprised to learn that Twitter can even give instructions to a robot! The idea: users type specific commands on Twitter to the @n900niko account, for example of a computer, which are sent to a hacked Nokia N900 which retransmits the instructions to the LEGO Mindstorms robot. Nokia ca…
A radiograph of a person is fairly normal in the medical field. But doing an X-ray on a robot, that's fairly unusual! Below are some X-rays of the dog, AIBO robot by Sony. via plastic pals
You have followed the progress here of Hinamitetu, the gymnast robot now capable of doing a somersault over a fixed bar then catching itself without falling. It should be clear here: this remarkable performance has not been achieved without pains. You have to suffer and persevere to reach perfect…
The Robust Robotics Group at MIT has created a QuadCopter which can travel about according to vocal instructions. The technician in the video below gives the following order to a helicopter robot: "Go across room 124, then face the windows and go up." This drone carries out the order without di…
Here is an Optimus Prime (self-robotized character from the film Transformers) which is 2.50 metres tall. It is made of 5000 recyclable parts taken from cars, boats, a dishwasher, motorbike, television and other pieces of metal. It still weighs 550 kg though. Along the same lines as with Robos…
The Manoï robot is known for its various dance skills. We have already shown you it dancing to Japonese rap and spinning upside down on its head. Now it's back with a new, rather original exercise. It moves in synchronicity with a dancer and a second humanoid robot which is life-sized. Man…
Hospi is an autonomous robot created by Panasonic and intended for South Korean hospitals. Hospi can move around patients' rooms and serve meals, clean laundry, medication, X-rays, documents to sign, etc. This type of robot has been used in hospitals in Japan since 2006. Equipped with a video …
The Airport in Rio in Brazil has "recruited" a falcon robot in order to ward off birds of ill omen :-) More seriously, this robotic falcon is used to scare the birds which fly above the airport so that they don't collide with planes taking off. Usually, airports use real falcons, not robots. I…
