The Norton Commando robot by Steve Twist is a neat new take on the transforming process. In this short a neat looking “healthy” robot transforms into a rideable motorbike. It took Twist about eight months to do this, all for his Undergraduate Degree course in Computer Visualization and Animation at Bournemouth University.
Who wouldn’t want a pair of Transformers speakers that would actually transform into a more incognito shape. Well if that’s what you like more, then you’d like the Optimus Prime iPod docking station instead. If you like Dumbo then you might just like these speakers. These speakers don’t seem to transform though since they didn’t want to raise the price over $50.
Plug the speakers into a USB port and they’re ready to play all your favorite songs, like normal speakers. Personally though, i think it looks better as a paper weight, since it looks like a decapitated elephant with its ears wide open.
It’s pretty hard to translate, but it looks like a bunch of robots that were created by Jiro Aizawa in the 50s and 60s have been found in a wearhouse in Japan. They are awesomely retro and have all of the design aesthetics from the era.
They have lights controlled by vacuum tubes and it looks like they may move as well. The robots will be fully restored to their former glory to terrify and thrill a whole new generation. They are a sight to see and should probably be in a museum somewhere.
Creating and selling stuff has always been the way of our economy, but an even more hot topic is manufacturing at minimal levels. Assembly lines have gotten more and more productive throughout the years, but we have not gotten something so small before.
The M-1iA from FANUC robotics is what I am talking about. It only weighs 17 Kg, which is pretty amazing for something that would replace a 86.6 Kg worker. As you can see in the video, the M-1iA is very swift about its job of putting keyboards together; and accurate too. Nothing that isn’t expected from robots. Add this robot to the Self-assembling robot and you got mass destruction production.
The SCRATCHbot was designed for search and rescue missions. What’s interesting about this one is that, much like a real rat, it uses its whiskers to detect disaster survivors in dangerous areas. The Bristol Robotics Laboratory developed the rat-bot over the past 6 years and now they hope to find interest for it in underground and underwater projects where vision can’t locate people/things.
It may have some other uses as well, like textile inspection and implementation inside intelligent vacuum cleaners, where it would be able to adjust the cleaning to the particular surface it senses. Video below.
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LMR-user Arek ArunioSmo has created a very unique robot design, the Climber. To allow the robot to go up stairs, it needs a wooden arc design so the energy is perfectly spread out, making it be possible for it to propel itself yet hold it’s position while doing so.
The first prototype was a failure on the first and last steps, but Arek had fixed that by adding an additional rubber wheel to the front, so it would be able to climb the first step and last step without falling. The Climber is a really unique design, which will lead to many other stair-climbing robots.
When I first saw this pic, there was something about it that I just couldn’t put my finger on. Then it hit me. Maybe it’s just me, but do these two bots not resemble Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman?
Jamie is the one on the bottom. That’s clearly a beret instead of hair and he has the mustache and glasses. Then you have Adam on top. Granted, Adam doesn’t have a stache like Jamie’s but he’s always got some growth. It makes sense that his stache would grow with no arms to shave. The hair is dead on and of course the glasses again.
Apparently they both lost their arms to one of Grant’s robots and judging by their chests they heart each other bunches.
This bot is from Trossen Robotics forum member Toymaker and goes by the name AIMEC:3. Right off the bat, I love the aesthetics of this robot. He manages to have vintage and modern looks at the same time. Toymaker is still working on this bot apparently, though it has been shown around a bit.
He taught AIMEC:3 the ability to sing Karaoke! It’s a modular design, with 7 PIC micro’s internally and a wireless link to a host PC. He also boasts face recognition and he hopes to have object recognition working by the end of this year. Voice recognition is via the host laptop. Unfortunately I couldn’t find any video, but I just love the look of this bot. Awesome job.
The Runner -Exploit yourself- from BLR_VFX on Vimeo.
Extreme running would be even more extreme if you were a robot in a pair of Nikes. That’s the premise with this new Nike ad and it’s pretty fun to watch. It features a computer-animated robot wearing a hoodie, leaping and bounding all over the place with the greatest of ease.
It’s simply more proof that one day we will no longer be able to outrun them.
Robots have often replicated and even improved on animal form, but the jellyfish robot changes how it is done. Engineers Sung-Weon Yeom and Il-Kwon Oh from Chonnam National University in Korea claims that this robot works perfectly like a real jellyfish. They say that it even moves exactly like a jellyfish. A real jellyfish has unique movements that no other species can easily match, especially the electro-active tentacles. Well guess what, these same engineers say that it copies all of the above.
Since this jellyfish has come around ahead of it’s time, it is sure that in the future models it will be out in stores for entertainment, it’ll be sold to businesses, and hell, it might even be in a robotic aquarium. Engineers and scientists hope that this base product will transform the idea into a self-powered jellyfish. Who knows, the apocalypse could be caused by a giant electrical jellyfish.
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 Robots are a fact of life. Soon they will kill us. We’d like to document the coming apocalypse. |
