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.
Seeing photos of this pool-friendly cousin of the Roomba in action brings back fond memories of a time when it didn’t snow every other day. But if you’ve got an in-ground pool in the backyard here’s yet another reason to look forward to Summer. Instead of breaking your back scrubbing the pool by hand, just drop the Verro 600 PowerScrub robot in and let it do its thing.
It will clean your entire pool from the floor to the waterline (including the steps) in about 60 to 90 minutes and uses an actual set of PVA brushes to scrub the surfaces clean. It also has a vacuum and self-contained filtration system to remove everything from leaves, dirt and other larger debris to smaller items down to 2 microns in size. And because it cleans independently, the Verro 600 actually reduces the workload and wear and tear on your pool’s own filtration system.
You can find the Verro 600 on the iRobot website for $1199.99. There are also slower, less sophisticated versions called the Verro 500 and Verro 300 which sell for $999.99 and $799.99 respectively.
Remember back when the Billy Bass was popular back in 2000 or so? Since then there have been a number of similar items on the market that are equally as annoying as the singing fish. However, these robot trophies have to be the coolest ones I have seen.
Since I’m fully expecting a robot uprising within the next decade or so, I would love to put one of these on my wall. That way when a robot breaks into my house to kill me, it knows that I’m someone that’s not to be messed with. There are 11 different robotic animals which have sensors that will make the robots come to life and become aggressive towards anyone who comes near. Unfortunately there’s no word on pricing or availability.
While Robot Coupe is actually an entire brand of catering equipment, I don’t think the word ‘robot’ is the best way to describe this automatic bread slicer. Just feed a baguette or similar sized loaf of bread into the vertical feeder and a stainless steel blade will cut anywhere from 180 to 360 slices a minute. You can also vary the thickness of the slices from 8mm up to 80mm for some serious ‘Texas toast’ action.
But the lack of arms and the fact that you have to manually feed this thing baguettes just keeps it out of the robot category for me. However if you own a catering business or sandwich shop this could still be a great replacement for a slow assistant, but all that time you save better be used to sell more sandwiches since the Robot Coupe Bread Slicer has a price tag of about $2,700.
When I leave my house for any period of time I don’t generally worry about my place getting broken into, as I live in a pretty decent neighborhood. Since I have pets there’s usually someone stopping by to check them regularly, so I don’t usually give things a second thought. However, if I were the paranoid sort, I’d buy myself a Rovio in a heartbeat.
The Rovio is a WiFi-enabled spybot that can navigate your entire home with ease. There’s really not much more you can ask of a spybot. This little guy can patrol your house 24×7, and you can access its audio and video footage from anywhere in the world. Look for this guy to hit stores this fall for around $299.
There’s a bit of satisfaction that comes with recycling an empty pop can, since you know you’re doing your part to help the environment. But I imagine there’s even more satisfaction if you turned that empty can into a robot instead! So this Soda Can Robot Kit includes almost everything you’ll need to convert that can into a sort of insect-like robotic creature.
What’s even better is that the kit doesn’t require soldering or any prior knowledge of robots to put it together. So even if you still have “get advanced degree in robotic engineering” on your to-do list (I’ll get around to it some day!) you’ll be able to get it running in no time. Of course once it’s assembled don’t expect it to come to life like Johnny 5 or anything. From what I can tell it will just vibrate and jitter around your desk, but that’s still better than having the empty can just sitting there.
You can find it at ThinkGeek for $12.99, soda can not included.
We’ve seen it in our popular culture for decades. Heck, even Sigourney Weaver killed the Queen Alien after jumping into a Mech-suit exoskeleton. It is fast approaching reality. These suits are not just something to give you super strength so you can help the elderly, like the one we reported on in October. The bugs are being worked out by the military so we can kill and crush enemies more effectively.
Sarcos, a Utah-based startup, has just shown a prototype robot that can work like an exoskeleton…
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