Eggshell Robotics

DARPA researches into "Hummingbirds"

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 01:06:00 +0200

DARPA (the same, that brought us the Internet after all) financed a research project of AeroVironment. They build some sort of new helicopter, that flies like a hummingbird. Recently it flies just for several seconds, but should show the potential of a new kind of technologies. Applications should be something like "spy-drones", that are small, lightweight and have dynamic abilities, for example to fly "10 meters per second" and that can "withstand 2.5-meter-per-second wind gusts".

Darpe just handed AeroVironment another new 2.1 million dollars to build a new, improved version of the "hummingbot". Robotic insects and birds are going to come. I personally find this Butterfly robots from Japan a little more charming.

A hummingbird (deutsch: Kolibri). Source: Wikipedia, PD Photo.

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Industrial manufacturing at home: FANUC M-1iA Picker Robot

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 00:11:00 +0200

Small scale industrial manufacturing - this is a hot topic. The guys who are already doing fabbing (printing of objects) are into lots of good research, both at an "at home" level, as well as at academia, like the MIT researching this area. This are thoughts floating in my mind right at the moment.

And than THIS came up:

The M-1iA from FANUC robotics is a small-scale assembly robot, with a weight of only 17 kg. It is therefore perfect for doing automated assembly at home, or on mobile situations like exhibitions, travel or even more futuristic scenes.

Self-assembly of robots for example is just one interesting field to explore or robotic mobility concepts. Okay people - time to move on and explore new plateaus, instead of doing one robot after another that does anything.

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52 Robot-Twitterers

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 20:47:00 +0200

At Wired/Geekdad I found an extensive list of "robot-twitterers". 52 of them. A long list - lots of new things to discover. Hm, we are not listed there. Maybe this is the case, because we don't twitter? Hm.. I occasionally twitter about robot-related things at my personal twitter-account: @020200.

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52 Robot-Twitterers

The Climber: Homebrewed Stair-loving Robot from Duisburg

Sun, 28 Jun 2009 04:23:00 +0200

Poor bot fails and need some help

Now this works even with the first step

On a very unique design wirls LMB-user Arek ArunioSmo. Neat I just see, that he comes form Duisburg, not that far away. No wonder, that this type of stair-style just released some enjoyable childhood memories.

"ArunioSmo" uses a very unique design with a wooden arc for The Climber. It uses its wheels to get grip and climb the stairs. The "organic" feel of the robots gives a worm feeling like a living creature. Very well done! If you are reading this Arek, feel free to throw in a comment!

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Evil Mad Scientist turned three! Happy Birthday!!

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 03:15:00 +0200

One of the most influential indie-labs in the world turned three today (or yesterday, depends on timezone). They made some groundbreaking discoveries and inventions, like the Candy Fab or the Meggy Jr RGB. But by far the most distributed work from them is the Bristlebot. Hell, even we have a special bristlebot-tag on this blog for this cheap and easy to to at home tiny robots. People all over the world are tinkering with them.

How to make a bristlebot

For the celebration of the three, they made a special page, listing the most important works they made in this time.

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Giant Plush Robot

Sat, 20 Jun 2009 02:24:00 +0200

Oh, and while we're already on the topic of giant robot, check out this picture of a somehow giant plush one. (via soup of doktorsblog)

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"Mech Warfare" enables remote contolled playable robots

Sat, 20 Jun 2009 01:48:00 +0200

Now this is totally awesome. Mech Warfare is a new competition at the RoboGames. Using mechanical systems (so called robots) with cameras, that can be controlled remotely with a joystick. The concept is called telepresence. I mostly enjoy, that this is a marriage of games and robots.

The aim of the competition is according to the webseite:

Our goal is to create a real-life robotic combat competition that mirrors the scenarios found in Sci-Fi universes such as Battletech, Warhammer 40k and Armored Core.

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Gundam Giant Robot is ready to take over Tokyo!

Sat, 20 Jun 2009 01:32:00 +0200

Good. This here was a work in progress, now they have a completely finished Gundam RX-78 robot standing somewhere in a Tokyo-suburb. Oh yes, we are somehow jealous, although we had big robots last year.

See more pictures of this impressive robot at Pink Tentacle.

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Don Solos minimalist Lego-Robots

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 21:39:00 +0200

Pictures by Don Solo himself, taken from his [flickr-account](http://www.flickr.com/photos/donsolo)

New Lego-Minimalists are on its way (i.e. look here). Don Solo also makes wise use of Lego-parts, to fulfil the objects he has in mind, using only some parts. Just look at this nice expressive robots he build.

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Wolfram Alpha features resistor codes

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 17:58:00 +0200

Well, this are fine news for people tinkering with stuff. The still new search-engine Wolram Alpha will make any kind of reference book obsolete. The now also translate resistor codes.

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Cosplay is coming to Germany

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 17:08:00 +0200

"Cosplay" is coming to Germany. Geeky fan-art culture, that seems to be very popular, especially for girls and young woman.

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Gundam RX-78: Giant Robot in the City of Tokyo - Odaiba

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 17:02:00 +0200

Odaiba is some sort of shopping, tourist and leisure part of Tokyo and soon waiting with another attraction for the world-visitors. Right at the moment they build a 18 meter high "Gundam RX-78" robot, with a weight of 35 tons, in order to celebrate the 30 anniversary of the robot-anime TV-series.

Wikipedia hold some information about the series, and there is always a lot of things to learn. The Gundam for example are Real Robots, in opposition to Super Robots. This means, that they are close to reality, and for example need maintenance on a regular basis and do not have unrealistic super-weapons. Leaving us with this question behind: What will happen to the giant Gundam robot in Tokyo in the near future? Will it get really to life on some day?

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MonkeyLectric Video Bike

Sun, 07 Jun 2009 16:49:00 +0200

Whooho. Forget tuned-up cars! The present is driving bicycles with MonkeyLectric wheels. Just like my colleague at Doktorsblog, I want to drive with this bike through the night of Cologne, my slogan would be:

I want to drive my bicycle. Try to do this on paper.

Maybe something less silly, maybe not. What would you nightdrive, and where? Just spread the word.

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Self-made 130-Megapixel scanner camera!

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 15:46:00 +0200

Oh boy, simple ideas can drive outstanding results. A Japanese amateur photographer named Spyuge combined an Epson flatbed scanner with a Canon manual-focus lens. Voila, result is an extremely high resolution scanner-camera thingy. The resolution of each picture is about 13,068 x 10,173 pixels!

Good, taking a picture with that device would take some time, but for a special-armed robot agent maybe a good idea. Uhm, I think more of making scientific scans from the surface of foreign planets than exploring the private life of your neighbours. ;)

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Vintage Robots: Coin Operated, Penny Arcade Robot-Games

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 14:01:00 +0200

Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum got a wonderful website with the history and collection of vintage, coin-operated robot-games, that were popular during the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s and 1970s - until the era of the videogames finally breaked through. It is funny though, because nowadays robots are slowly, but surely on its way, to replace the dominance of videogames by doing robotics again (ok, this is future-music).

Nevertheless, feel free to stumble in this great archive of old robot-machines and you will meet, fortune tellers, cranes and driggers, even mechanical driving- and gun-games and more coin-operated entertainment machines from the past.

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