Score Online With Robot Soccer

October 22, 2009 by Mike Szczys 4 Comments

robot-soccer

[Erik] and [Heni] have been using soccer as a way to improve code development techniques in robotics. Their soccer playing robots won first prize in the development competition at the 2007 RoboCup competition. They are using a teaching method they call Kinesthetic Bootstrapping to program the motions of the Bioloid robotic platform. The robots are moved by hand and those motions are recorded twenty times per second. The recorded data is then optimized in software and ready for playback in the robot.

After the break you’ll see a video of the robots playing soccer against each other. They receive commands from a computer via zig-bee with Nintendo Wii remotes as the user interface. That’s all fine and dandy, but perhaps you should try your own hand at a game. [Erik] and [Heni] developed a web interface that allows you to control the bots over the internet. We tried it out yesterday and had quite a bit of fun. We set the video stream to “Spectator” and “Jpeg Server Push” to get an image. You’ll have to wait until next week to play because the bots need someone to pick then up when they fall over. Live play is scheduled for Mondays and Wednesdays from 4-6pm GMT+2. That should give you plenty of time to program your Arduino to say “Gooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaalllllllllll!!!” when you score. Continue reading “Score Online With Robot Soccer” →

Ski Bot

October 21, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 13 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luzs63dGHQs]

[Bojan Nemec] has come up with a robot that can ski better than us. Not that skiing better than us is a hugely lofty goal. The bot is capable of skiing using standard, off the shelf skis. It has a dual computing system. One system only does steering and balance while the other does all the vision and control. He’s using the carving technique of skiing, stating that normal skiing is just too hard for a robot. That sounds like a challenge to us. You can check out the blooper reel, which is still better than us, after the break.

Continue reading “Ski Bot” →

Industrial Robots Producing Art

October 21, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 26 Comments

[blip.tv ?posts_id=2728039&dest=-1]

Here is an interesting project that should spark some good discussion. Artaic is a company that is using industrial robots to produce mosaics. They are then selling these mosaics as fine art. As you can see, some of the examples are quite nice looking. However, we have to wonder what the draw is to own one that is made by a robot. Is it really that much different from just printing an image? We really do think it is a cool project and an efficient way of producing these mosaics. We would really love to see one of those super fast delta robots doing the work.

We’re trying to reduce the negativity here at Hackaday. We are passionate geeks and hackers, and as such, we tend to jump straight to the negative points. We hope you guys will follow along with us and try to be constructive in the comments. That being said, the video did seem a bit pretentious, didn’t it?

[via BotJunkie]

Awesome Robots Love Fanta

October 19, 2009 by Caleb Kraft 28 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOESSCXGhFo]

What you are seeing above is not a commercial for Fanta, though we think it would have been a good one. It also isn’t being played at an accelerated speed. That is a real time demonstration of the accuracy and speed the ABB robots achieve. We were surprised, even shocked, when we clicked play. We don’t know who came up with this idea, but we want those robots, and we want some Fanta. We’re a bit curious what industry needs beverage tracing robots though.

The last time we saw such amazing feats of robot awesomeness, they were bouncing balls and catching stuff in mid air.

Polycarbonate Fish Uses Three Servos To Swim

October 17, 2009 by Mike Szczys 15 Comments

polycarbonate-fish

[Amnon] is learning the hard way that water and electronics don’t always like to play nicely together. He’s been working on creating a swimming fish that uses three servos to flex a sheet of fish-shaped polycarbonate. This photo doesn’t really do the project justice but you can get a better idea of what he’s accomplished by watching the videos after the break.

The three servos along with some distance sensors for obstacle avoidance are all controlled by a PIC 16F877A microcontroller. [Amnon] tried out three different waterproofing methods; coating the device in varnish, dipping it in hot glue, and dipping it in epoxy. The first two resulted in water damage to the electronics, but the third managed to work. It kept the water out, but also prevents reprogramming of the controller.

Although not successful, we would have loved to see the process of dipping the fish in a churning vat of molten glue. Once perfected, this may be the perfect platform for carrying our weapons of doom.

Continue reading “Polycarbonate Fish Uses Three Servos To Swim” →

Skittles, The Robotic Blimp

October 16, 2009 by James Munns 18 Comments

Blimp 4_0

Funky Shiitake Mushrooms, a high school design team from Fremont, CA, have created a low cost airship they call Skittles the Second. Skittles is a remote control robotic blimp, complete with 4 reversible propellers, wireless video, and 2.4 a GHz remote control. Somewhere between a regular RC blimp and a Predator Drone, Skittles and FSM have managed to gain a large number of awards including winning the Digital Open grand prize. The ship performs amazingly, and can perform a full 360 in just over one second. There is a video after the break.

For the future, the group plans to give the ship autonomous capabilities, in order to avoid losing another drone in strong wind. Fortunately, after that happened to Skittles the first, they were able to hunt it down after it had floated 3 miles down the road. Since they are all high school students under 17, we would say they have a lot of potential. I, for one, welcome our new robotic blimp overlords.

Continue reading “Skittles, The Robotic Blimp” →

RFID-enabled Robot…mood…tail…thingy.

October 16, 2009 by Phil Burgess 38 Comments

moodtail

Furries: is there nothing they cannot do? Well okay, “shower” remains an elusive concept, but wearable technology seems to be in, as evidenced by this robotic mood tail. [Wei-Chieh Tseng]’s adorable Arduino-driven fashion accessory operates either via Wii Nunchuk or a set of RFID cards tagged with specific emotions to depict.

Details are scant. It appears to have been a project for a physical computing or design class. One thing’s for certain: Halloween is going to be awesome.

[via Engadget]