BloodKeith, a robot hobbyist from China, has designed and built himself some pretty sweet robotic hands. The hands themselves have 7cm long fingers, with 5cm for the thumbs, and the fingers are simultaneously controlled by a single servo. The videos on his blog show the hands grasping various objects and opening/closing at different speeds. The first two videos that demonstrate speed are particularly creepy and, at 3am, concerned me greatly. The hands also remind me of the Terminator hand in Terminator 2, but made out of Lego.
I spotted these really cool papercraft robots on some dude’s livejournal and had to find out a little more, mainly as to why they sound like they might be a painful case of groin growths. There’s some info over at the Paperoid website – such as all the different robots available, what their skillsets are – in classic not-quite-there translation from Japanese to English. There’s even an untranslatable comic about the Paperoids available, which I highly recommend if you like to be confused beyond confusion itself whilst looking at trance-inducing colours. The models themselves are cunningly crafted into a handful of coloured tubes, that once cut and bent as directed turn into the mighty little paper robots.
You can grab some of the characters in the UK from twentytwentyone, here is Muscle Jaw, you can find others using searching prowess.
This robot is really cool and reminds me of some sort of Pokémon snail/millipede creature or Rincewind’s Luggage from Terry Pratchett’s novels. Icosatetraped means that is has 24 feet, which whilst is true, only actually uses 8 of them to move – the other 16 ‘feet’ being used to support the robot’s weight. Most remarkable is that the feet themselves are soft – that is they are made from hollow, ribbed tubing – which is quite novel. The ribbed part is important too since the feet are controlled pneumatically, the tubes filling with air and emptying to bend them in any direction! The robot is controlled over wifi to a mac mini.
I would like to know how many weekends “a few weekends” (the time it took to construct) is because if it is anything less than eight that is incredible! I want to work at Google and make robots damnit.
A new humanoid robot has been announced today, after some showboating last year, which is aimed at the aducational market to begin with – as with the wonderful Nao. Sales start on March 15th 2010 with the first thousand units and general release will follow later allowing hoobyists to get their greasy hands on PALRO’s 38.9″ body. Priced at around £2000 you actually get quite a lot of bang for your buck – PALRO boasts 20 degrees of freedom, a camera, microphones, speakers, an LED faceful of expressions, a meagre 1.5kg heaviness and an Intel Atom 1.60GHz brain. And PALRO looks awesome, with apparently many colours available if you’re into that sort of thing. Voice control is also being suggested, yet I cannot confirm at present.
We all secretly knew that Bender would end up as a post sooner or later, but what guise would he be in? Well, when I was finding stuff out about yesterday’s robot I found this little project which is immensely brilliant. Some dude in New Zealand took it upon himself to build a life-size Bender out of MDF and fibreglass. But that wasn’t all – there is a ‘brain’ to allow Bender to talk (MOS 6502 processor spouting pre-recorded clips via a wireless remote), a light-up cigar and, the best bit, a beer brewer in Bender’s stomach (albeit it does make it so it appears Bender is urinating the beer..).
I could go on about how awesome this Bender Brewer is but I think you should take a few minutes and just have a browse of the dude’s website. Very nice job.
I only just found out about this guy/girl/collective/robot/robot collective/disembodied hand (haha, that joke has literally been on every version of this story I have seen so thought I would keep it too because I am being lazy). Basically he/she/they/it/they/it are crafting a robot every day in 2010 out of junk and stuff. Just like I LIKE ROBOTS writing about a robot every day in 2010, but actually doing something instead. See the pictures here.
Good luck to you weird robot maker person/ecollection of persons/robot/collections of robots and remember, robots are for life not just for 2010.
Nerdbots is brought to you by Nicholas and Angela from Kansas city. These people are my kind of people. The kind of people who one day decide they need to build a robot, dreams that I too share deeply with them. Using items they pick up at antique and thirft stores, they painstakingly create robot sculptures that are literally the greatest creations I have ever seen. I have no more words, just go to their site and take a long, long look. Then buy me one.
We all know I like robots, but a little known fact is I also like zombies. And then I found these. I had heard of swarm robots and they certainly piqued my interest. I did not even imagine you could set them up as in the video below, to simulate an infection scenario, just like zombies right? Right?! What makes it more zombie-like is that it is undertaken in low light – dusky, scary and zombie-y.
Zombots! Okay, maybe not, but a man can dream..
Even though these bots look simple, they aren’t – they drive using small mobile phone motors, can communicate over infrared (many uses here: one being the uploading of firmware to one robot can ‘infect’ it to all the others in a swarm, another to use the infrared sensors as ambient light sensors so the bots can zoom away (or to) light sources and a third use being the ability to identify colour changes on the floor) and their batteries hold around an hour charge. The bots can even charge themselves up by driving to a powered rail.
The whole system looks really fun, it is extensible and ready to be hacked and developed (if only I had the time..). You can pre-order your formica 2 kit here for a meagre £30 (though be prepared for a touch of easy soldering to complete them in all their glory).
Tiny - mobile phone motors and infrared communication
These robots made from recovered junk and found items are fantastic, even if they aren’t quite finished yet! Made by Travis Pitts, a freelance illustrator and designer, they hold on to a retro style and look superb. The attention to the details is where the win lies, kids (check out the buttons on the mad scientist bot!). I do hope that he finishes them and sticks a light in the, er, eggbot – it would make a great lamp that I would be quite prepared to pay for. Look out for more robot stuff, amongst a wealth of very impressive items, on his flickr page.
This one is for those robot fans who also like to get busy with their hands, yet find themselves confused as to which day it is – a papercraft robot calendar for 2010! Download the pdf from Sal Azad’s site, alternatively use this direct download link. I’m sure it won’t matter that we’re already four days into the year, so get making and share any creations in the comments.
Blimey, it’s 2010 already, the most futuristic year to have ever happened. And what else exists in the future? Robots of course. So, in homage to our new masters (pending imminent takeover) here you will find a new robot each and every day of 2010, whether they be in pictures, art, videos or other forms.
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