Robotics News and Info Centre

How to Live, Breath, Sleep, and Even Eat Robotics

2007-03-28T08:10:00.000+07:00

The "Wrenchware" set seems like a perfect fit for a few of the robot fanatics that we know and love.

Hack turns Robosapien to Robocop

2007-03-28T08:01:00.000+07:00

arcus from Evosapien.com either has too much free time in his hands or really likes hacking his robots. Recently he uploaded instructions telling us how to hack Robosapien V2 such that it handles a homemade BB gun with laser sight controlled via the WowWee supplied remote. Marcus calls his creation the CoilOsapien. You probably have to have some experience with electronics before you set out to implement this hack. Also, if you build it, make sure not to aim at anything that can brake because the gun can sure fire those pellets at high speed. With hacks like this, they can definitely revive the now defunct Robot Wars TV show. Why waste you time watching some remote controlled cars with chainsaws attacking each other when you can have a bunch of Robosapien robots shooting each other’s heads off? Add a few FlameOsapien robots (another of Robosapien hack by Marcus) in the mix and you will have one heck of a spectacle. I hope the Korean Robot Ethics Charter includes a clause about home hacks to turn service robots into killing machines (just kidding!) Here is a video Marcus made that demonstrates CoilOsapien.

Mystery Robonova Transformer Robot In Singapore?

2007-03-21T09:15:00.000+07:00

Sharp-eyed Humanoido, from the RoboSavvy robot forum, discovered a very interesting set of recent videos (included below) showing what appears to be a Robonova-1 robot that's been modified to act like a Transformer - complete with a set of wheels to drive around.

In addition to the Transformer mods, the mystery robot, which appears to have been hacked in Singapore by "TC Tan", features a head mounted video camera, and some really slick Kung Fu moves.

Robot Week In Japan!

2007-03-21T08:39:00.000+07:00

ROBO-ONE kicks off next Saturday morning, and early indications are that tickets for the premier robot event may sell out long before the doors open. The latest measure of the extreme interest in personal humanoid robots here is a content rich, multiple page, robot special section unveiled this week at the top of the Yahoo Japan website.

The "Weekly Yahoo! Japan" section usually has an over-arching theme for each month, with supporting content that's updated on a weekly basis. For Vol. 5 (March 14th through April 13th) robots are the featured theme, and the section starts off proclaiming that "Atom will be here soon!"

Of course the 'Atom' that they are referring to is the well known, and loved, manga and anime robot - Tetsuwan Atom - better known in the US as "Astro Boy." The feature section includes numerous pages, with lots of photos and video clips, covering the history of robotics worldwide, a separate section devoted to Atom, and detailed information on the current humanoid robot hobby boom.

Humanoid robot event coverage includes ROBO-ONE, Robo-Fight, the Kyosho Athlete Humanoid Cup, and others.

Microsoft working on simulated Robot Soccer Challenge

2007-03-17T11:06:00.000+07:00

In its efforts to market their relatively recent Robotics Studio, Microsoft has developed a soccer simulator in hopes that it can be used in RoboCup 2007. Microsoft Robotics Studio uses the AGEIA PhysX Technology to create simulated but realistic environments for robotics research while making it easy to port the resulting controller to a real robot. Bill Gates recently wrote an article for Scientific American providing a brief overview of robotics history while making sure to promote their new product.

A couple of days ago, Microsoft announced their intention to sponsor a competitive demonstration of their physics-based 3D engine applied to robot soccer in RoboCup 2007. Currently, there is an open call for participants and interested parties can find information at the U.S. RoboCup website.

It is expected that initially teams will work with an early version of the simulator that only supports wheeled robots; this should give developers a chance to become familiar with the software and also work on team strategy. Microsoft has promised to develop support for legged robots by May.

Finally, Microsoft is not limiting itself to just simulation. They hope that in the future they will be able to work closely with robot manufacturers to develop real soccer playing robots with software development centered on the Microsoft Robotics Studio.

It is clear that Microsoft is really serious about making an impact in robotics over the next few years. They have already gained support from a number of robot manufacturers including Kuka, iRobot, SRI International, Lego Systems, Yujin Robotics, Coroware, Parallax, Robosoft etc. I suspect that they will continue to gather support both from the industry but also from academia and even hobby roboticists on the virtue that their software is free and well supported and documented. The Microsoft Robotics Studio has numerous tutorials for beginner and advanced users not to mention 10 hours of video tutorials.

Cool Robot, new icebreaker to gather polar data

2007-03-17T11:04:00.000+07:00

By Deborah Zabarenko, Environment Correspondent

HANOVER, New Hampshire (Reuters) - The Cool Robot is square, squat and slow, but its utilitarian beauty is clear to polar researchers who want a sturdy non-human helper to carry instruments over vast stretches of the Arctic and Antarctic.

Basically a wheeled box covered with solar panels, the Cool Robot was among innovative technologies presented at an Arctic "science summit" on Wednesday, along with an ice-breaker ship that can whirl slowly around on sea ice and a stand-alone science station that looks like a giant picnic cooler.

"The Cool Robot concept was a robot that could deploy instrument networks in a vehicle that was very light," said Laura Ray, a professor at Dartmouth College and a participant in the summit.

The robot weighs about 130 pounds (60 kg), runs quietly on solar power with a top speed of about 2 mph (3.219 kph) and navigates with global-positioning satellite, Ray said. Slow and steady, it can travel 310 miles in two weeks, with instruments loaded into its cubical body or towed on a sled.

It could make observations -- like measuring the properties of snow as indicators of climate change -- that are sometimes risky and expensive for humans to do in polar regions.

And that is the point. Ray said 70 percent to 85 percent of the budget for U.S. polar science programs pays for logistics. The use of a robot that provides its own power could help whittle that cost.

Presentations on the robot and other inventions were part of the Arctic Science Summit Week, which brought together scientists and policy makers from the Northern Hemisphere to consider global warming's impact on the polar regions.

World first in medical robotics

2007-03-17T10:55:00.000+07:00

    Fantastic Voyage: from science fiction to reality?

   Ecole Polytechnique de Montréal researchers successfully control and
   navigate a wireless device inside an artery using a clinical magnetic
   resonance imaging (MRI) system, paving the way for novel, minimally
   invasive and more accurate surgeries

   MONTREAL, March 16 /CNW Telbec/ - Some 40 years after the release of the
classic science fiction movie Fantastic Voyage, researchers in the
NanoRobotics Laboratory of Ecole Polytechnique de Montréal's Department of
Computer Engineering and Institute of Biomedical Engineering have achieved a
major technological breakthrough in the field of medical robotics. They have
succeeded for the first time in guiding, in vivo and via computer control, a
microdevice inside an artery, at a speed of 10 centimetres a second.
   Under the direction of Professor Sylvain Martel, holder of the Canada
Research Chair in Micro/Nanosystem Development, Construction and Validation,
and in collaboration with researchers at the Centre hospitalier de
l'Université de Montréal (CHUM), the Polytechnique team has succeeded in
injecting, propelling and controlling by means of software programs an initial
prototype of an untethered device (a ferromagnetic 1.5- millimetre-diameter
sphere) within the carotid artery of a living animal placed inside a clinical
magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) system.
   Encouraged by these results, staff at the Polytechnique NanoRobotics
Laboratory are currently working to further reduce the size of the devices so
that, within a few years, they can navigate inside smaller blood vessels.
   "Injection and control of nanorobots inside the human body, which
contains nearly 100,000 kilometres of blood vessels, is a promising avenue
that could enable interventional medicine to target sites that so far have
remained inaccessible using modern medical instruments such as catheters,"
Professor Martel explained. "In collaboration with our scientific partners,
Polytechnique researchers have begun developing several types of micro- and
nanodevices for novel applications, such as targeted delivery of medications
to tumour sites and diagnoses using navigable bio-sensors."
   The results of this scientific breakthrough were published by Professor
Martel and 10 co-authors from Ecole Polytechnique de Montréal and the CHUM on
March 14 in the scientific journal Applied Physics Letters.
   Patent applications have been submitted for this method of real-time
monitoring and guidance of devices for minimally invasive surgeries using MRI.
Commercialization of the technology has been entrusted to Gestion Univalor,
LP.

   About Ecole Polytechnique

   Founded in 1873, Ecole Polytechnique de Montréal is one of Canada's
leading engineering institutions in terms of both teaching and research. It is
the largest engineering school in Québec as far as its student population and
the scope of its research activities are concerned. Ecole Polytechnique
provides instruction in 11 engineering specialties and is responsible for more
than one-quarter of university research in engineering in Québec. The school
has 230 professors and nearly 6,000 students. Its operating budget is $85
million, in addition to a $68-million research and infrastructure fund, which
includes grants and contracts worth $38 million. Polytechnique is affiliated
with Université de Montréal.

   NanoRobotics Laboratory: www.nano.polymtl.ca

   Photographs of Professor Martel and videoclips are available for download
at www.polymtl.ca/sc_journal/SylvainMartel

For further information: Annie Touchette, Communications and Recruitment
Office, Ecole Polytechnique de Montréal, (514) 340-4711 extension 4415,
annie.touchette@polymtl.ca

Machines with Emotions and Feelings

2007-03-17T10:08:00.000+07:00

The Edge has published an article by Marvin Minsky on the subject of emotion and feeling that ties in with his book, The Emotion Machine. He starts by summarizing a common belief people seem to hold: "Of course machines can do useful things. We can make them add up huge columns of numbers or assemble cars in factories. But nothing made of mechanical stuff could ever have genuine feelings like love." From there, he examines what we know about emotion and feelings in humans, from infants, through adulthood. He also looks at why it is that many people react strangely when confronted with the idea that the human body is a complex machine, frequently by inserting words like "merely a machine" or "nothing more than a machine". Minsky concludes that these people are carrying around an obsolete idea of machines that by definition implies inhumanity.

Mutant Spider Robot About To Be Born

2007-03-16T12:08:00.000+07:00

This strikingly creative hybrid robot spider is half Korean (Bioloid for the body and legs) and half Japanese (Transborg NetTansor for the head, brain, camera, and networking). Laurent, the developer, is still in the early stages of prototyping and programming, but based on his earlier robot and robot simulation work, it won't be long before this mutant spider is amazing and perhaps terrorizing the neighbors. It should turn into a great example of how stock robot kits can be hacked and combined to create exciting new robots that the kit manufacturers never imagined.

my technorati profile

2007-03-16T10:39:00.000+07:00

Technorati Profile

Little Robot Guy With A Lot Of Personality

2007-03-15T11:16:00.000+07:00

We're talking about the robot, not the photographer, though he might also be blessed with a lot of personality. Happy Tinfoil Cat, the human that digitally captured this creative humanoid, posted an very interesting set of Homebrew Robot Club photos apparently taken during their February meeting. While this image was our personal favorite, we were also very intriqued by his teaser photo of the dog and battery - it left us wondering "what happens next...?"

Countdown: Coming Up - The Most Exciting Robot Event Ever!

2007-03-15T10:25:00.000+07:00

ROBO-ONE 11 is just a few weeks away, and the excitement is really ramping up here in Japan. Several of the major television networks, including NHK and NTV, have started broadcasting program segments featuring some of the top robots, and hobby robot articles are popping up in many popular Japanese magazines,

When entries to compete in the event closed last night, there were a total of 186 robots signed up, which we believe to be an all time record. Advance sale tickets to the March 24th/25th event are available online via the Lawsons Ticket system [code: 31716] for 1,500 yen versus 2,000 yen for purchase at the event itself.