During the Tokyo Hotaru Festival, 100,000 illuminated LED spheres were released into the Sumida River. The swarm of lighted balls was meant to mimic fireflies floating down the river in the moonlight. The majestic sight was captured in some of the beautiful photographs below. (By the way, the LEDs were later collected and did not […]
The curious looking gripping mechanism above draws inspiration from geckos. Large surface area on a gecko’s feet allows it to climb vertical walls by taking advantage of electrostatic forces. For example, the video below shows a robot with an electrostatic “foot” that climbs up a vertical wall This new project uses the same premise to […]
Jamming Gripper + Elephant Trunk = Awesome still in the early stages of development, this concept is trying to combine one of the more dexterous animal manipulators with the jamming technology we have seen popularized through the coffee ground filled balloon grippers. The arm is made up of a bunch of different jamming segments stuck together […]
It is a technological advance to facilitate the mass-production of micro-robots, which can then be employed as a “real” swarm consisting of more than 100 micro-robot clients. These clients will all be equipped with limited, so-called pre-rational on-board intelligence. The swarm will consist of a huge number of heterogeneous robots, differing in the type of […]
The simple bloblike shape of “Keepon” belies its subtle complexity. Inside the dancing blob are 4 motors that control its side-to-side and forward and back head bobbing, the rotation, and the up and down motion as Keepon interacts with people. Using cameras located in the eyes, Keepon is able to recognize faces and actively interact with people […]
The high speed robotic hand from Japan has some new moves. This time, its trying to impress us by juggling! The high-speed hand and arm has an even higher speed vision system that allows the robot’s controller to plan for catches and throws (up to nearly 2 meters in height) at a breathtaking 500 frames per […]
This video fascinated the world when it was first released. The robot is comprised of a balloon filled with coffee grinds. Simple… and the revolutionary concept of “jamming” the particles together by drawing a partial vacuum has allowed this hand to grasp a wide variety of objects that even humans have a hard time holding on to. […]
