(Click here for a hi-res version of the above image.) There were definitely some mixed opinions about last year’s Transformers movie (worst movie of 2007!) but so far Christopher Nolan and crew seem to be doing a pretty good job of breathing life back into the Batman franchise. Of course Batman is nothing without his toys, and the Tumbler Batmobile is almost as much a star of the latest films as Christian Bale is. So I have to wonder why it’s taken so long for a fanboy to imagine what it would be like if the Batman and Transformers worlds merged.
Thankfully the fanboy responsible for this concept also appears to be an extremely talented 3D artist, and his Tumber Autobot Edition almost makes you wish the Tumbler became Batman’s sidekick instead of Robin. The concept image was originally posted to the Don Murphy Message Board by ‘JesterJJZ’, and the amount of detail that’s gone into the robot mode is quite astonishing. Now let’s just hope we eventually get an actual animation of this thing transforming.
The Seascout is a prototype rescue craft designed and created by Andre Harley. He created the prototype using the Lego mindstorms robotics NXT kit. The Seascout will use GPS to track anyone who has fallen into the water. It will scoop the person up and take them to safety. It will also have radios so that the person in the water can communicate with someone on the shore(or boat). It is also intended to be able to work in situations and weather that a human lifeguard would not be able to handle.
So now we have robots that can serve beer and robots that can save you when you get drunk and fall into the ocean. Forget about terminators taking over the world. We’re being taken over by helpful and cute Wall-Es.
The Asahi Robot Bartender was unveiled at Selfridges Department store in London, England a couple days ago. “Mr Asahi” as the creators like to call him can serve beer in draught pints, half-pints and can take the cap off a bottle. He can serve a person in 2 minutes and even has a few programmed replies to customer questions.
He was “trained” for six months before being revealed to the public on July 2. It took 200 hours and eight engineers to assemble this robotic beer baron. He is also lifesize and weighs over 250 pounds so if he had working legs he could probably throw you out of the bar if you were drunk enough to pick a fight with an inanimate object.
For a bar this could be a great addition. An employee that never needs to get paid, doesn’t need to keep it’s own tips, never takes a break and never steals drinks. And maybe after a few hundred years he’ll turn into Wall-E but with a built-in keg.
I’ve never read Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot, but I can only assume the original book is a lot better than the I, Robot movie starring Will Smith from a few years ago. As I recall, it wasn’t exactly a hit, whether you’re going by critical acclaim or box office take, so I’m kind of surprised that someone actually thinks there’s a demand for a replica bust of the movie’s ‘protagonist’ robot known as Sonny. The bust features the same opaque outer housing as the NS-5 robots did in the film, which allows you to kind of see their inner-workings. But for a better look at what makes him tick you can remove the back of Sonny’s head where you’ll find his brain that actually glows thanks to a set of blue LEDs. The bust is powered by a single 9-volt battery hidden in the base, and is available from the Funshop for about $130.
After a multi-month renovation my local Sony Store was just reborn as the ‘Sony Style’ store. At the grand re-opening there was the usual hoopla with Sony reps giving demos of various products which gave me my first chance to spend some real one-on-one time with the Rolly. I can’t say I was disappointed, because quite frankly I wasn’t expecting much, but I’m having trouble seeing why someone would pay $400 for one. When you see it rolling it around with the flaps moving about you might think the Rolly was being positioned as a sort of interactive musical companion, but it’s just not. While the Rolly’s dance moves can be synced to whatever music it’s playing (or streaming) or even custom programmed on a PC, that’s about as interactive as it gets. A few store patrons seemed to think it was a robot along the lines of Aibo based on how it was moving about, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth.
So I guess we should just think of the Rolly as a ‘funky’ set of speakers right? Well unfortunately that was the one area where I can say I was disappointed. The Rolly is about the size of a soda can, so when you consider that has to fit a 5 hour battery, the motors to drive the ‘wheels’ and other electronic components, there’s not much room left for the speakers. As a result I was definitely unimpressed with the Rolly’s sound quality, and I don’t think I’d want to spend 5 hours listening to my music through Rolly’s speakers. As a party gimmick it might be cool for a few minutes, but I think there are far better ways to blow $400.
The only thing better than having your own robot servant is having a robot servant you can actually ride. RINGBO is kind of a hybrid between the Radio Shack bots of yesteryear, and those electric carts used by the elderly and disabled. Unfortunately it’s specifically designed for kids aged 2-3, so if you’re thinking it would make those long walks to the copy machine at work a bit more bearable, be aware that it has a 66 pound weight limit. RINGBO is controlled via a pair of joysticks mounted on its head, and also features what I assume to be a touch-screen LCD. What it’s used for though, I have no idea. On a 6-8 hour charge your kid can spend an hour crashing into furniture and terrorizing the family pets, since I’m pretty sure they aren’t protected under Asimov’s 3 Laws of Robotics.
If you happen to be in New York on May 14 or 15 you can check out RINGBO in person at the Koreannovation Trade Show.
The picture above probably won’t make much sense until you watch the video I’ve included below. That is unless you’re already familiar with torso-less robot hobos walking around pushing shopping carts. In that case you probably won’t find this video as funny as I did.
Carlos was actually designed for a college project and was intended to be a study of how robots could be used to help the less fortunate.
Carlos was a college kinetic sculpture project. I was interested in the concept of automating aspects of society that were considered not so “glamorous”. Robotics are often used in environments which are considered dangerous to humans. Deep sea exploration, nuclear cleanup and volcanism are some of the “higher profile” adverse environments which robots are used. My question was, “What about other dangerous or hazardous areas?”. For example, homeless people live in extremely dangerous environments. Shouldn’t there be automated equipment used by this strata of society?
I’m not sure how the catching on fire part comes into play, but it makes the Hobo-bot all the more entertaining to watch. And it’s particularly interesting to see people walking by trying to ignore the robot, just like they would ignore an actual homeless person.
Without a big fat defense contract from the government, how is the average consumer supposed to go about creating their own wise-cracking, sequel-spawning, remake-coming robot sidekick? Since Heathkit never sold a complete Johnny 5 kit, you’ll have to slowly piece together your own. And you can start with this robotic arm available from RED5 for about $60.
While it comes partly disassembled (oh no!) you can put it together without having to do any soldering or wiring. It’s powered by 5 electric motors that allow it to lift a whopping 100g and the arm features a 120 degree wrist pivot, a 300 degree elbow motion and a 180 degree base motion. And if I remember correctly, if you want it to develop some level of sentient intelligence, you’ll need to use it outside during a storm and hope for the best. Just be aware that a lightning strike doesn’t always guarantee it will develop a soul. It sure hasn’t worked for me.
It’s easy to get this Daisy, who’s a giant robot fan, confused with that other Daisy, who happens to be a fan of giant robots. But they’re easy to tell apart since this Daisy has a large cargo ship propeller made of fiberglass attached to the end of its arm. There’s also a set of video cameras embedded in the robot’s base that are able to recognize and track people as they walk by, which allows Daisy to turn and face them. Kind of like a giant flower that could one day take over the Earth.
The robot was created by Christian Moeller and currently resides in Terminal 3 of the Changi Airport in Singapore as an art installation. There’s a Quicktime video of the robot in action on Christian’s site, because who can afford the skyrocketing costs of posting anything to YouTube these days. The robot’s slightly more impressive when you see it moving, but I think it could be a lot more useful if it could spin that propeller fast enough to provide on-demand cooling to those walking by.
The first LEGO creation I saw that was able to independently solve a Rubik’s Cube was JP Brown’s CubeSolver. It was truly an amazing feat of LEGO engineering that relied heavily on the original LEGO Mindstorms, but when compared to the Tilted Twister it almost looks over-engineered. Of course the Tilted Twister does have the benefit of using the newer LEGO Mindstorms NXT technology, but that doesn’t make it any less impressive.
Designed by Hans Andersson, the only modification made to the Rubik’s Cube itself was a set of custom color stickers to allow the Mindstorm’s light sensor to properly recognize the different colors. Other than that the machine uses all stock Mindstorm parts and all of the calculations are handled by the NXT’s own processor, no PC required. But how well does it perform? The Tilted Twister can scan a Rubik’s Cube in just 1 minute and requires about 20-40 seconds in order to calculate a solution. After that it can solve a cube in 1-5 minutes with a maximum average of about 60 faceturns.
But to truly appreciate the Tilted Twister you have to see it in action and thankfully Hans has posted a YouTube video which I’ve included below. He was even kind enough to speed up the particularly tedious sections where the robot is manipulating the cube so you can see the process from start to finish.
Related Tags: Concepts, Robots
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