By Evan Ackerman

Could someone please explain to me why, exactly, roboticists seem to think that it’s such a good idea to give their creations swords? Like, I get that it’s a way to demonstrate grasping and dexterous movements, but if you start with robots demonstrating swords, you move on to robots fighting each other with swords, and this will be our terrifying future. And swordplay seems to be a bad idea for HUBO here more than most, since it repeatedly hits itself in the head with a sword that is thankfully not made out of anything dangerous…

Read more at BotJunkie…

Stanford University is already famous for its autonomous robotic vehicles, including Stanley (who won the DARPA Grand Challenge in 2005) and Junior (runner up in the DARPA Urban Challenge in 2007). This weekend, Stanford held an event to showcase their partnership with Volkswagen on a new $2 million autonomous innovation laboratory. On display was Stanford’s latest autonomous vehicle, a robotic Audi TTS named Shelley. Shelley currently holds the unofficial world speed record for an autonomous car at over 130 mph, and will be racing up Pikes Peak all by herself next year:

Stanford also demonstrated an autonomous valet parking system, where an almost stock Volkswagen Passat entered a parking lot, located an empty space, and parked itself:

We’ve got a bunch more details over on BotJunkie:

[ Pikes Peak Audi TTS ]
[ Autonomous Valet Parking ]
[ Volkswagen Automotive Innovation Laboratory ]

While this MaruBot Football League game is probably going to be referred to as a “modern take on foosball” they’re really two different beasts. Instead of plastic players being spun on sliding rods, MaruBot uses 4 robots, 2 per team, that are controlled by individual joysticks manned by 4 different players. Of course the goal of each game is exactly the same, to get the ball into the net, but MaruBot requires different different teamwork and gameplay strategies than foosball does. For the moment it appears to be only available in Korea, so here’s to hoping it makes its way to North America one day.

[ MaruBot Football League ] VIA [ Chip Chick ]

Revealed at IFA last week the Samsung Furot II is yet another robot vacuum cleaner, but this one sounds like it could be a bit smarter than those already on the market. Not only does its built-in camera allow it to see and avoid obstacles, but a visionary mapping system also makes it aware of its location. So instead of cleaning your floors by randomly rolling around your home, it sounds like it can more efficiently map out your floor plan and even remember what areas have been cleaned and which haven’t. On a single charge it will happily (assuming it comes equipped with emotions) clean away for about 90 minutes, but if it doesn’t get the job done it will simply pick up where it left off once it’s recharged. As for a release date or pricing info, unfortunately Samsung hasn’t announced that yet.

[ Samsung Hub - Furot II – Robot Vacuum Cleaner with integrated camera ] VIA [ Born Rich ]

I can understand the idea behind a robot dog since the real thing does have a tendency to leave fur everywhere, chew on anything and everything and require multiple trips outside to cover your lawn in ‘waste’, but a robot plant? Now that’s just plain lazy… but my kind of lazy! The Sega Pekoppa doesn’t need watering or nutrient-rich soil or even sunlight, just a set of 3xAA batteries to keep it alive. And unlike the real thing that just sits there and eventually dies, the Pekoppa will respond to your voice and actually move around thanks to a set of futuristic muscle wires. (Remember when those were the next great thing?)

Here’s a video of a bunch of people getting overly excited at what is essentially a moving stick, and if you’d like to be one of them you can get your own from ThinkGeek for just $18.

[ Sega Pekoppa Robot Plant ] VIA [ The Green Head ]

By Evan Ackerman

Last week on BotJunkie, we watched the activation of a life-size Gundam in Japan, found out that Arnold Schwarzenegger was actually a Russian terminator robot from World War II, wondered why anyone would ever buy the most annoying robot toy ever, watched snakebots test out different types of movement, felt doom approaching with robots controlled by zombie bug heads, met a motorcycle evaluating robot named Flossie, watched a robot that’s trying to learn how to ski, saw the Rotundus Groundbot go for a swim, found out that the spunky little battery powered Evolta robot is attempting a new endurance record, cringed at the uncanniness of Archie, cringed again at HRP-4C modeling a wedding dress, watched a humanoid robot from Toyota that can outrun Honda’s ASIMO, felt sorry for a robot with a binary tramp stamp (but bought the shirt anyway), didn’t know what to think about a bizarre killer barbie death robot, and watched a new VTOL UAV take to the air.

So far this week, we’ve written about a robot bricklayer that creates complex patterns in buildings, a quad-rotor UAV that knows how to perform “provably safe” backflips, and some industrial robots that play baseball better than humans… Almost.

Last week’s Bots with Stuff, after the jump.

[ BotJunkie ]

By Chris Scott Barr

When I was about 12, my parents decided to finally get a pool for all of us. I remembered being so excited when they finally got it put in, however, it wasn’t long before I realized how much work went into keeping that thing clean. I still think that I probably spent more time cleaning it than just enjoying the darn thing. Well for all of the people out there that don’t have children to do all of their cleaning for them, there is a cool little robot that can help out with at least one of the chores.

The Solar Powered Pool Skimmer does just exactly what you think it would. It simply motors its way around your pool, skimming leaves and other debris so as to leave it looking nice and clean. The Skimmer gets around using dual paddle wheels, along with four wheels on its corners to make sure it never gets stuck. The best part is that it’s solar powered, meaning you never have to worry about recharging it. It even will navigate around the pool to find the most ideal charging spot when it needs some juice. The worst part is the $500 price tag.

[ Solar-Breeze ] VIA [ Gizmag ]

By Chris Scott Barr

There are some debates that all geeks seem to have with their friends. Star Wars vs Star Trek, Pirates vs Ninjas, Windows vs Mac, etc. One that tends to come up in my circle is which will try to take over the world first, zombies or robots. Well here’s a little bit of info that’ll give you an edge when voting on the side of robots.

Apparently a group of people have developed a sniper robot that refuels using biomass. Yes Virginia, the damn thing gets its juice from consuming human bodies. I’m sure that it’s programmed to only go after dead bodies, but a quick bullet to your backside would be enough to prevent its imminent shutdown. The AI is programmed to plan out its actions for the immediate future through the next 24 hours. With a name like EATR, what could possibly go wrong?

[ RTI ] VIA [ CrunchGear ]

By Evan Ackerman

Last week on BotJunkie, we started out on a bit of a sour note listening to some robots figuring out how to sing, watched some industrial robots pick things up and put things down very very fast, read about a concept robot that prints on your walls, were incredibly impressed by a simple robot that climbs stairs, pondered what we’d stash away in a customized robot pouch, watched a humanoid robot transform into a car, fled in terror from an i-SOBOT riding on a steam tank, admired some awesome Japanese retro robots from the 1960s, checked out some new iBotz beginner robotics kits, felt a little better now that there’s a whiskery robot rescue rat on patrol, felt a little worse now that DARPA has a UAV that looks like a hummingbird, decided that $7000 is probably too much to ask for a little robot car, decided that $70 is not too much to ask for a little robot car, and finished out the week with a bizarre movie trailer for “RoboGeisha” and a nifty robot HTML t-shirt.

So far this week, we’ve posted about a robot that transforms into a motorcycle, an uncanny picture of a robot and a human, a robot that delivers customized ramen noodle soup, and the smallest wheeled robot with a gripper in the world.

Bot with stuff (post 4th of July edition), after the jump.

[ BotJunkie ]

By Chris Scott Barr

I enjoy drawing, and like to think that I’m not half-bad at it. Not everyone has spent countless hours doodling to perfect their skills, so instead they can rely on a machine to help them. No, it’s not going to make you a great artist per se, but it will force you to draw at least one really good picture.

This Self-Portrait Machine takes a picture of the person using it, and once they’ve strapped themselves in, it moves their arms back-and-forth to create a picture. It’s a little gimmicky, sure, but who wouldn’t want to be able to show off an awesome self-portrait that they drew?

[ We Make Money Not Art ] VIA [ GearFuse ]