Anki DRIVE

Earlier this week Anki, a new robotics company, was introduced at the Apple WWDC 2013 by Apple CEO Tim Cook.

 ”Anki uses iOS devices and the iOS platform to bring artificial intelligence and robotics into our daily lives.”

-Tim Cook

Anki is launching Anki DRIVE, a physical gaming platform that uses artificial intelligence with real-world robotic toy cars. Not only can the robots drive themselves, but they can also be used to play sophisticated games. See the full presentation below to witness the robots in action.

Profit 500 Awards

The companies on this year’s PROFIT 500 are a breed apart; they dominated their markets, employed thousands and grew exponentially at a time where the rest of the economy stagnated.

- Profitguide.com

At RobotShop, we are very lucky to be in the robotics market, which is growing exponentially and allowing us to grow along with it. We are also very lucky to have amazing customers who love their robots and understand the potential of this technology. Thank you all for choosing RobotShop!

MyRobots.com

The MyRobots.com cloud monitoring service is officially FREE! All references to the initial token system (where payment would be required for data transfer) were removed on May 31st. This means that the current data transfer and storage service will remain free for all.

Additionally, we noted that the concept of a “social network for robots” may not have been immediately clear for everyone, so that is why we revamped the front page and created the animation below. If you are a robotic enthusiast, you must watch this video!

Get your robots connected today!

The round shape is obviously for maneuverability (just like most robotic vacuums) and although the wheels and motors look inexpensive, they are likely good quality and help lower the price considerably. The board uses the same setup as an Arduino Leonardo which means there is no need for a separate serial to USB chip (once again reducing the cost). Built-in features include an LCD display, downward-facing IR sensors for line following, 5 push buttons (which they call a “control pad”; useful for navigating the LCD), a buzzer for audio feedback, solder prototyping areas for additional modules, and something most other robots don’t have – a compass.

Arduino seems to be deviating from producing only electronics to producing mobile robot kits. The Arduino Esplora, released a few months ago, is essentially a handheld programmable controller. If these kits are successful, this could see Arduino branching out from creating versatile electronics to producing more complete, integrated systems.

We’ll certainly look to add this product to our catalog, but welcome your opinion on this new and exciting product! Tell us in your comments below.

FlowBotics Studio is a new robotics software development platform: it boasts the powerful FlowStone graphical programming language, and includes many demo robotics projects to get you started.  It can be used to control just about any robotics platform, data acquisition board, motor controller, servo board, sound card, or webcam.

FlowBotics Studio includes hundreds of built-in components that allow you to interface your PC to many of the standard computer peripherals and, using the FlowStone programing language, you can quickly create new components for new hardware. You can also easily create new projects with custom GUI screens, knobs, buttons, switches, etc. that will run live from within FlowBotics Studio without needing to wait for compilation.

Using the FlowStone programming language is as easy as dragging new components out of the library into the project’s schematic, and making green links to connect one component’s output of another one’s input. FlowStone even has support for writing custom modules in Ruby, a traditional procedural language.

FlowBotics Studio Demo Projects

There is a growing collection of pre-made demo projects for use with your robotics hardware: the demos range from GUIs for simple interface card and sensor — that give you access to real-time analogue and digital signals — to full-blown robotics control applications — that have visual representations of your robots that can be manipulated directly with the mouse: the project calculates the inverse kinematics and moves the robot immediately.

The projects also have a powerful pattern sequencer component that is used to build reusable patterns that allow you to program the gait of a walking robot within minutes or hours, instead of days or weeks.

Since the demo projects are open source, they can be modified to tailor a specific purpose or parts can be extracted for use in new projects, and the new demos will be available through FlowBotics updates.

Graphics in FlowStone

The FlowStone programming language includes a powerful graphics engine that allows you to make custom graphical objects by using standard bitmaps or by drawing your own shapes on the screen. Using this system, you can build entirely custom interfaces for your projects and integrate photographs, drawings, and graphs.

Video in FlowStone

Using FlowStone, you can record and playback video from your webcam and, using some of the video processing modules, can do motion detection, colour detection and facial recognition. The graphics engine you can even display live video inside your project’s GUI.

Audio in FlowStone

FlowStone also has a powerful audio engine that allows you to record and playback sounds, and even generate some of your own. You can import WAV and MP3 files and process the audio using signal processing modules like EQ: you can even create your own synthesizer sounds using the built in oscillators and filters.

Interface to the outside world

FlowStone has a huge range of supported computer interfaces, from data acquisition boards, home automation, webcams, soundcards, networking, serial ports and USB devices. There are thousands of supported devices, including parts from Lynxmotion, Phidgets, Pololu, and Robot Electronics and also parts implementing standard Bluetooth, Xbee, Modbus, TCP/IP, UDP/IP, HID, RS232, RS485, CAN Bus, SPI, I2C, X10, DMX512, and other popular protocols.

Applications

Hobby Robotics

Use FlowBotics Studio to control your hobby robotics, using the pre-made demo projects for many of the Lynxmotion kits or build your own projects just for fun.

STEM Education

FlowBotics Studio is the perfect tool for education. It is simple enough that it can be used by children from secondary and high school, but also powerful enough to be used by university students for undergraduate and graduate studies. The rapid development capabilities of the software mean that you can achieve much more in a short lesson than you could with traditional programming tools.

Science: Use FlowBotics Studio to create applications for science experiments, test and measurement, data logging, graphs, saving files to disk and more.

Technology: FlowBotics Studio can be the heart of your design for things like home automation, A/V recording, video processing, audio processing, more.

Engineering: Use FlowBotics Studio to create mechatronic engineering systems including control systems, SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition), human-machine interface, and autonomous robot systems.

Math: Use FlowBotics Studio to teach mathematics, from binary numbers and boolean algebra to trigonometry functions and graphs.

Data Acquisition

Want an easy way to capture data from the outside world? The FlowStone language has built in support for many popular data acquisition devices: for example, you can use a Phidgets Sensor Interface Kit 8/8/8 to sample analog and digital signals.

Robotics

The serial port communication in FlowStone allows you to connect to a wide range of low-cost robots. You can use Inverse Kinematics (IK) and Proportional Integral Derivative (PID) modules to manage movement and create impressive interactive user interfaces to control your robot live.

Digital Signal Processing

By connecting to external analog I/O devices, you can stream high data rate signals directly into FlowStone. The Stream data components and DSP code component can then be used to create complex signal processing, and all this happens in real time.

You can even tweak your algorithms and user interface live – while your data continues to stream. This makes the development process extremely quick as you see the effects straight away.

Image Processing

The FlowStone language has many video functions built in. You can easily connect to external webcams, record video to disk and perform complex tasks like motion, colour and face detection with ease.

Home Automation and Security

Using the X10 home automation system, you can create a completely customized home automation or alarm system.

Using passive infrared sensors, check for motion and trigger lights and cameras. Use FlowBoard and the GSM module to send SMS alerts back to you if key events occur. Switch on and off appliances or lighting.

Industry

FlowStone is even used in industry for creating complex applications from test and measurement, SCADA, data logging, machine control and even UAVs.

To Purchase

FlowBotics Studio is available for purchase as either a CD or a download:

• FlowBotics Studio V2 (CD)
• FlowBotics Studio V2 (Download)

UAVs in Haiti 

Drone Adventures, is exploring how to use new technology, namely drones, for humanitarian aid. As shown in the video below they are using UAVs to help map Haiti and  understand the social and geographical changes in the country.

Since robots aren’t particularly helpful to humanity yet, it is nice to see applications that help people in need and do more than just making their life easier. As robots evolve, so will their ability to help us in meaningful ways.

Via IEEE Spectrum.

The long-awaited Lynxmotion Servo Erector Set V1.1 is now available for immediate purchase!

Lynxmotion SES V1.1 Robots

SES stands for “Servo Erector Set”, a versatile set of servo brackets and mechanical parts used as modular building blocks for hobby servo motors. The Servo Erector Set mechanics are made up of durable black aluminum brackets and sturdy black Lexan. You can build an entire assembly using just these components, then populate it with servos and electronics to bring it to life.This makes it surprisingly quick and easy to design and build rugged, complex robots and systems. Unlike many other modular robotic building kits, the Lynxmotion SES brings you closer to making truly custom robotics as it allows you to integrate third party sensors and products.

What is included?

The SES V1.1 includes over 500 parts and online instructions allowing to build five very different types of robots: a simple 2WD rover, the popular AL5D robotic arm, a fun BRAT biped, an advanced quadruped and a versatile hexapod.

Most prominent parts:

• Rechargeable battery
• Wall charger
• Wireless PS2 Controller
• Botboarduino microcontroller
• SSC-32 servo motor controller
• Bluetooth USB dongle
• Bluetooth Bee
• 44 durable aluminum brackets
• 8 rugged Lexan panels
• 12 Hitec servo motors

How do you program the robots?

Flowbotics Studio V2

We are proud to introduce FlowBotics Studio V2. This new version is a great step forward in robot-programming and allows roboticists, from novice to expert, to easily create robotic behaviours using a combination of graphical and text-based programming.

Flowbotics Studio with AL5D Arm

By linking modules and components together it is possible to create advanced robotic behaviours that interact directly with the robotic hardware. Events and data then flow between the links as the application executes the program on-the-fly without need of compilation. This make development and testing seamless and extremely fast and avoids lots of the usual headaches of developing robotic behaviours.

Al5 Arm, 2WD Rover and Biped BRAT sample projects

FlowBotics Studio V2 was created in conjunction with DSP Robotics and uses the powerful FlowStone graphic programming engine (a feature never before included in a hobbyist-centric software). Out-of-the-box, it supports the SSC-32 servo motor controller, a selection of Phidget modules, and some standard sensors.

Since this software is also included with the SES V1.1, it is preloaded with highly-detailed sample programs capable of driving and simulating each of the five robots included in that set. You can see a glimpse of those projects, in the screen captures included in this page.

Hexapod, Quadruped and Servo Sequencer sample projects

You can download FlowBotics Studio right away by purchasing it at RobotShop.

Fake Google Driverless Car

F.A.T. played a practical joke on Manhattan residents recently by creating a fake Google driverless / autonomous car and “autonomously” roaming the streets. They displayed terrible driving skills (even staged some accidents), and acted as offensively as they could. See the very funny resulting video below.

If you want to make your own, they even shared the instructions on how to print your own “LieDar” (a fake Lidar sensor that gives the car the distinctive autonomous look) using a 3D printer or a 3D printing service.

Via Nerdcore.

Ecovacs Robots

We are happy to announce the availability of the Ecovacs product line at RobotShop. This innovative manufacturer currently produces three different robots: the Atmobot, the Deebot and the WinBot.

Atmobot is an air-purifying robot that roams the house seeking pollutants in the air and eliminating them. This is a very unique robot and the only one of its kind now available on the market. You can see it in action in the video below.

Deebot is a robot vacuum cleaner with a twist; It vacuums the floors just like many other robots do, but has a very handy feature: its docking station can automatically empty its dustbin and the same station doubles as a hand-held vacuum cleaner. This means that with this system, you will not need to empty your robot vacuum as often as with other models. Also, you can use the hand-held vacuum to finish cleaning of other surfaces which the robot cannot reach. See an in-depth presentation of the robot below.

Winbot is a window and glass cleaning robot. It uses a suction system to stick to glass surfaces, which makes it very versatile and capable of cleaning many types of windows and glass panes. The video below shows this handy robot in action

We hope you are as excited as we are about these awesome robots. Order them now and let the robots take care of your home!

Liam’s Robohand

Richard Van As, a master carpenter from Johannesburg, South Africa, decided to make a set of mechanical fingers. He’d lost four of the fingers on his right hand in an unfortunate work accident. As a tradesman, having a disabled hand is a big professional detriment, so he decided that he would use the tools available to him to remedy his situation. As the project evolved, it became Robohand, an open-source initiative to help those lacking our most precious tools as humans, our hands. One of the most prominent tools he uses, and that made it possible to create these prostheses in an affordable way is a MakerBot Replicator 2.

See the inspiring and touching video below and don’t be afraid to shed a tear or two, we certainly did.

Need your own robohand but do not have a 3D printer, feel free to submit your files to our 3D Printing Service.

Via Make Blog.