Sharp talons and a strong torso let this robot climb trees, even while carrying a heavy payload. It uses a simple principle, two gripping units allow it to grab onto the tree. These modules alternate, one grips while the torso moves the other up the tree.

You can make out the trio of rods which connect the front and back half of the robot in the image above. Watch the video after the break to see how the motors move these rods with the dexterity of an inchworm, allowing it not only to climb upwards, but to bend and flex to match the contours encountered in the wild.

This was presented at International Conference on Robotics and Automation a few weeks ago. Unfortunately we can only find an abstract for the paper so please leave a link in the comments if you know where to find the full monty.

[via Adafruit]

While you are out enjoying your Labor Day festivities, keep an eye out for robot snakes in the trees. The CMU robotics lab has built a snake bot named Uncle Sam that can climb trees and poles. As you can see in the video after the break, the bot seems to have no problem at all scaling a tree. It wraps itself around the tree, then rotates down the center of its entire body. Once it has reached the top, it can take in the scenery. Though it is a little creepy looking, at least it isn’t in the water.

When we introduced you to the Twitter Christmas tree ornaments, sadly we had very little information about the project. Luckily [Rob] made contact and clued us in on the inner workings. It even turns out we were wrong about the usage of Arduinos! We invite you to check out all the juicy inner workings after the break.

Lets jump right into the explanation,

So the controller uses a single Arduino connected to 3 74HCT595 shift registers.  The ’595 takes a clock bit and a data bit, and each leading edge (0-1 transition) of the clock bit shifts in a data bit.  Then there’s an 8-bot latch, and the leading edge of another line captures the state of the shift register to the outputs.  Each ’595 stores 8 bits, can be chained, and there are three of them.  This lets it control 24 lights with only 3 I/O lines.  Each output is connected to a TIP31 transistor, in standard NPN configuration.  The TIP31 can switch up to 3A, so they handle the 1A 6V lamps with no problem.  This is pretty close to the schematic we’re using, except only 24 outputs:

Here’s the sketch I used to control the shift registers:

long count;
unsigned long val;
void setup()
{
  Serial.begin(9600);
  pinMode(10, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(11, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(12, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(13, OUTPUT);
  digitalWrite(10, HIGH);
  digitalWrite(11, LOW);
  digitalWrite(12, LOW);
  digitalWrite(13, LOW);

  count = 0x00;
  val = 0;
}

void loop()
{
  unsigned long i;

  if (Serial.available())
  {
    char c = Serial.read();
    if (c >= '0' && c <= '9') {
      val = val * 10 + (c - '0');
      Serial.print(c);
    } else if (c == '\n')
    {
      Serial.print("setting count to ");
      Serial.println(val);
      count = val;
      val = 0;
    }
  }

  unsigned long bv;
  digitalWrite(10, LOW);
  for (i=0, bv=1; i < 24; ++i, bv <<= 1)
  {
    byte bitval = LOW;
    if (count & bv)
      bitval = HIGH;
    //Serial.print("i ");
    //Serial.print(i);
    //Serial.print(" bit ");
    //Serial.println((int)bitval);

    digitalWrite(11, bitval);
    digitalWrite(13, HIGH);
    delayMicroseconds(50);
    digitalWrite(13, LOW);

    delayMicroseconds(50);
  }
  digitalWrite(10, HIGH);

    delay(10);
    //++count;
    //count &= 0x3ff;
}

I bit-banged the SPI protocol, since I was having trouble using the hardware SPI, and figured it was easier than fiddling with registers.  I since discovered the breadboard was a bit flaky, and lowering the bit rate would have probably worked too, but that’s for V2.0 :-)  It listens for a number on the serial port, and shifts that number into the 74595′s.  Lather, rinse, repeat.

The other side is an old netbook, running a Processing sketch – since I didn’t write it, and forgot to ask for permission, I can’t attach it, but the essence is a loop that screen-scrapes Twitter’s search API, and sets the bits of a long corresponding to the words that it finds.  I’m now updating it to blink faster or slower based on the frequency that a word occurs, since words like Christmas seem to appear frequently this time of year, who knew?

Rob D

There you have it. For those wondering, the schematic is actually for an upcoming light control shield [Rob] is working on. You can expect to get your own around April. For those that just can’t get enough Alpha One Labs goodness, be sure to join us for their regular UStream this evening at 7pm EST.

Christmas may be over, but we still have a couple of cool holiday related hacks for you. One being [Alpay's] Twitter based interactive Christmas tree ornaments.

We tried to dig up some more information, but it thus far appears a laptop running Processing searches Twitter for specific Christmas related words (like 1337, that’s Christmas-y), sends a buffer to one of three Arduinos which in turn light up a specific ornament. You can check out a live stream here.

For those wanting a bit more information on Arduino and controlling holiday lights, check out [Alpay's] GE health care version of Twitter lights, or our previous post on controlling Christmas trees, or you might even try [Michael's] $10 Walmart light controller.

[mrpackethead], created this monster of a tree.  As shown in the video, it’s capable of showing animations, patterns, and potentially video. The 6m tall creation is studded with 2000 waterproof RGB LED modules. Software for the tree was written in Apple’s own Quartz Composer and integrated into Madrix, a piece of software designed with the purpose of controlling LEDs. The 600W system is 100% Arduino-free and costs less than the equivalent of 0.04USD per hour to run in New Zealand.

[Geoist] opted for the Arduino way to rig up his own smaller RGB Christmas tree. Finding a slightly kitschy fiber-optic model in his local department store, [Geoist] was eager to harness its colour-changing powers. Upon opening it up, it was discovered that it was controlled by nothing more than a light bulb and a spinning disk of coloured light filters. [Geoist] gutted the setup in favour of a breadboard with 3 RGB lights hooked up to an Arduino. The sketch for it is available on his site.

[bugloaf] tipped us off about this flower power hack. University of Washington researchers, [Babak], [Brian], and [Carlton] have developed very low power circuits to run directly off of trees. This builds upon the work of MIT researchers and Voltree Power. A voltage of up to around 200mV is generated between an electrode in a tree and an electrode in the ground. Identical metals can be used as electrodes as the process is not like that of a lemon or potato battery. The significant development here is the use of a boost converter and exceptionally low power circuits. What kind of applications can you come up with for this source of power? Maybe you could try to combine this power with the power from donuts and hair.

Geekware.ca has some ideas for geeky tree ornaments. This is a great way to add some personality to your holidays as well as recycle some of that electronic junk you have laying around. From RAM stars to floppy disk ornaments there are certainly some quirky ideas here. They would make great last minute gifts for someone who can appreciate your nerdiness. GeekAlerts also has a couple interesting ideas too.

Everyone always complains about the Christmas season coming earlier and earlier, but we think when we can have Christmas trees like the one pictured above, it’s not such a bad thing. Created by English fashion designer [Gareth Pugh], the tree features sixty white neon tubes, and is supported by a freestanding metal rod. It reminds us of the light sabers in Star Wars, which is probably why we like it so much. The tree is just a carrier for the decorations anyway, right? You can check out the tree in person at the TOPSHOP in Oxford Circus, London.