Category: Robots

If you’re interested in the Vex Robotics Design System, you might want to bookmark Vexfan.com, a discussion site dedicated to the building set. There’s not much going on there now (it’s only a month old), so stop by, grab a clipboard and a white coat, and try to look busy and important to help attract more wireheads.

It may look a little like a toilet on wheels when it’s folded up, but when deployed, it’s something far more interesting. Pebbles (which is one of those clunky acronyms for “Providing Education by Bringing Learning Environments to Students”) is a robot telepresence system for kids who have to spend a long time in the hospital. Such a lengthy stay can be a huge setback for a child, in terms of their schoolwork and maintaining ties to their school chums. Pebbles acts as a robotic proxy, with one unit in the classroom and one by the child’s hospital bed. Basically a teleconferencer on wheels, the child can see what’s going on in the classroom (and be seen in return), and s/he can move the classbot around via a game controller, and even raise the robots hand to participate in class discussions. The student can even move the robot from class to class, stopping off at the lockers to talk trash and to chase down and dispatch bullies with the onboard flamethrower (okay, I made that last part up, I got a little carried away by the whole concept).

Read an AP piece on Pebbles.
See the Pebbles page at Ryerson University in Canada.
Check out the Pebbels info at Telebotics, the bots’ maker.

We’ve covered the work being done at the Stanford RiSE Project here in the past and the Poly-PEDAL Lab at Berkeley and its study of geckos and how they grip surfaces. This reverse engineering of gecko tech continues apace, the latest effort being this little fella, Stickybot, who can climb on glass. Pretty cool.

As its creator says in the linked video, this RoombaMidi software allows you to control your robo-vac’s motors with a MIDI keyboard and play music that has all of the fidelity of a wristwatch, but hey, it’s a robotic vacuum that dances, plays tunes, and flashes its purdy lights. What more do you people need?

Who knew that steam-powered robots were going to be an up and coming thing? Last week, we gave you the steam-powered robotic arm, now there’s a walking steam-powered robot toy from Germany, a US$300 robot toy from Germany. The e-tailer listing it, Robot Island, doesn’t give any other details (like how much bot for your buck), but there are a couple of additional pictures. Allegedly due stateside this summer.

[Via Engadget]

Reuters had a rather disheveled piece yesterday about military robots in Iraq and how soldiers were getting attached to them, even grieving over their loss. That’s not the mixed up part. That’s completely understandable (more mundane example: I SWEAR my Roomba has an unhealthly interest in the umbrella stand by the front door and snubs his bump sensors at me as I yell: “Hey, stay away from there!” and “Get the rug out of your mouth”). The strange bit is how they used the robot casualties in Iraq angle to segue into talking about Rodney Brooks/iRobot’s ideas on robot avatars. This is Brooks’ answer to being able to get highly intelligent robots into our lives before reliable artificial intelligence is ready for prime time. So, what’s a robot avatar? Well, remote-controlled robots, such as the military PackBots, could qualify. But Brooks’ idea is a bit more expansive than R/C. After the jump is a piece of “micro-fiction” I wrote for my book Absolute Beginner’s Guide to Building Robots. Written for the intro to the “Robot Evolution” chapter, it explains one possible senario using Brooks’ concept.

And you thought today’s urban carparks required a tight turning radius. Luckily, in this one, it’s robo-valet parking only. Actually, what you’re looking at is a robot retrieval system for new cars at the VW plant in Wolfsburg, Germany. Think of it as a VW vending machine. Let’s just hope they don’t let the cars plummet to the bottom of the machine when you select one. You know what that does to your Fritos, imagine what it’d do to your new 2006 Jetta.

[Via Nxtbot]

The Robovie-I is a 6″ high programmable robot from Japan’s VStone, makers of robot soccer teammembers and robot components. Robovie-I can walk, right itself when it falls over, duke it out with other Robovies, and yes, play soccer. No word on if it’ll be available in the US or how much it’ll cost. Check out the video on Akihabara News. It has a very strange way of counterbalancing its movement. I love the two bots playing Sumo on what looks like an overturned Chinet dinner plate.

How freakin’ cool is this? Remember the Tandy Super Armatron, probably the most beloved of robot toys? This enterprising builder crossed it with another propellerhead favorite, the Jensen Hobby Steam Engine, to create a steampunk masterpiece: The Jensen Armatron.

After drafting their list of the Ten Coolest Robots (which I’d take over Wired’s list any day), TechEBlog have now cast their vote for the Ten Strangest. I don’t know. I’ve. seen. stranger.

Thanks, Jay!