Robots Hacks

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The Serpent Mother

August 22, 2009 by 12 Comments

serp-mother

The Serpent Mother is certainly an appropriate name for this 168foot long snake fire art installation filled with enough goodies to impress anyone who is into flame effects. [The Flaming Lotus Girls] were allocated $60,000 in May of 2006 to bring this art project to Burning Man. A team of nearly 100 people worked together at a furious pace to pull it off. The collaboration of skill-sets is unfathomable between the metal art, firmware, software, LEDs, and propane design. The primary flames consist of  41 “poofers” along the spine of the serpent each one capable of delivering a 8′ tall flame. Tucked away near the tail is a egg that makes use of methanol and boric acid to create a massive green fireball. When the egg is open nobody is allowed with 150′ of the project. The brain that runs the beast is nothing more than a RS-485 network of humble ATmega8s. The microcontrollers are wired with XLR cable and chatting at a 19200 baud. Max/MSP is used on a laptop to control flame patterns. Here is a enjoyable write-up and video. We particularly enjoy the bit about the strange looks the team got when purchasing 50 stun guns.

Handbot, The Shelf Climbing Bot

August 21, 2009 by 22 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92bLgE6DO2g]

Handbot is one piece of a larger project called Swarmanoid. The aim of the swarmanoid is to replicate the functions we usually desire out of a humanoid bot with a whole swarm of specialized bots. That seems like a silly goal to us, considering the only requirement for a humanoid bot is that it be shaped like a human. That aside, we like their stuff. The handbot specifically is designed to retrieve books from bookshelves. It has specialized arms for climbing and grabbing the books with a batman-esque retractable rope launcher mounted on top for added speed and strength. The gait of the handbot really reminds us of how chameleons walk. We’re curious if this is a coincidence or not.

[via BotJunkie]

Condom Testing Robot

August 20, 2009 by 37 Comments

coital-model

Broken condoms are a serious concern, not only for those who break them, but the companies who manufacture them. When studying the common reasons for breakage, a coital robot was used to simulate usage. Though it isn’t much of a robot, consisting mainly of simple pneumatics, it does serve its purpose. The study was able to determine the most common cause of breakage, and hopefully this information will lead to less occurrences. Robots do exist in the sex industry, and not just in that speculative future sex bot sense. Why weren’t any bots of a sexual background included in the big picture? The comments might want to stray towards future tech and possibilities, but we’re curious what there is out there currently and how robots are helping the industry.

Home Built Delta Robot

August 14, 2009 by 39 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bQRXfLwBgU]

Theres an interesting thread going on at RoboterNetz.de (translated) about building delta robots. For those who haven’t seen delta robots before, be sure to check the video after the break for some really impressive agility displays. A delta robot usually has 3 arms connected to a single point at the end. This configuration allows the end point to maintain its “level” while the whole unit is moved, usually very quickly. There are a few people building them in this forum. The one pictured above is [Asurofilmchen]’s version, but you should also check out [Radbruch]’s posts of a robot made by [Jamison].

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The Big Picture: More Robots

August 12, 2009 by 2 Comments

big_picture

The Big Picture is Boston.com’s daily news photo blog. Each day they pick a particular story and feature some of the best news photography around. Today they chose robots and have 36 photos highlighting current robot research. This is a followup to a similar post from March. It’s interesting to see all the different forms and tasks robots are taking.

Ecce Robot

August 12, 2009 by 28 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cI9H4FoA0b4]

According to the video, Ecce Robot is a new paradigm in robotics. We don’t know if that’s true or not, but we really enjoy the drive system. They have mimicked the biological structures in humans using elastic cables and cheap drill motors as muscles. It is intriguing to watch the complexity that even a simple arm lift requires. This does show inefficient this type of set up is, but we still think it is cool. We don’t understand the desire to use cheap drill motors though. Cost aside, the control problem they mention seems like it could be resolved with a little better motor setup. Then again, we’re sure they thought of that. This seems like a perfect time to bring up a common question. Is it worth the inefficiency of trying to mimic our natural biological structures with hobby robotics pieces? What technology would have to be present to make it worth the complexity?

[via Engadget]