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Robot Lumberjack

By Owen Li | Published: April 8, 2014

With conspiracy theorists teeming with excitement over Google’s potential Skynet plot (buying Schaft, Boston Dynamics, self driving cars…what gives?), roboticists Yasuhiko Ishigure, Katsuyuki Hirai, and Haruhisa Kawasaki, are adding to the fray, with this  lumberjack bot.

This chainsaw bot is not only capable of climbing up and down trees, but can also dismember them without human interaction. The robot can spiral its way up tree trunks ranging from 2.3 to 9.8 inches in diameter, and easily lops of limbs up to about two inches in diameter without a second thought…actually, without a thought at all.

Behold, the ”Pruning Robot With a Power-Saving Chainsaw Drive.”

It doesn’t matter how much smooth jazz you play as it tears up the tree, slicing off branches, it’s still a deadly machine. While the machine could definitely reduce the need for human labor, the fact that it can climb and slice limbs seems like a horror movie waiting to happen. Imagine what this thing could do if it latched onto your leg. Eesh.

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Walking Lanterns

By Owen Li | Published: March 9, 2014
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You know what’s missing from your garden or lawn right now?

Of course, robots! Your garden is absolutely missing robots. Especially the sort with lots of legs and big lights on their heads.

People often have to get down on all fours to move lamps and lanterns from one spot on their garden to another. The Toro-bots get rid of the dirty work because they’ll get up and walk to your desired location with a few flicks of the remote control. They’re also equipped with infrared rangefinders that allows them to detect when someone is nearby (they’ll step off to the side if they sense they’re in someone’s way.) This means that eventually they can be given some level of centralized autonomous control.

Built on PhantomX quadrupeds, and each has been programmed with its own unique behavior and can reconfigure itself depending on the season, the presence or absence of a human observers — that develops structure in a generative way, creating a dynamic conversation between the elements in the garden. That just goes to show that even robots can have a green thumb!

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Hockey-playing Printer

By Owen Li | Published: February 27, 2014

It prints, it scores!

Recently, Jose Julio re-purposed a 3D printer to play hockey, but not full-scale, body smashing ice-hockey, the more printer-friendly air hockey.

The robot has three motors, one for the x-axis and two for moving the mallet along the y-axis. Using a PlayStation Eye camera, Julio wrote code to 1) allow his robot to see, and 2) to predict where the puck is going to go so that the motors can act appropriately. Adding to this, the table uses two old PC fans to create a cushion for the puck to slide on.

However, the robot isn’t exactly perfect. It doesn’t know where the goals are. But that handicap  still doesn’t keep it from scoring.

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Termite Robots

By Owen Li | Published: February 22, 2014

When you first think of termites, you might think of those pesky little bugs that take down your houses, right?

Well, termites also have another skill. They can build huge and vast structures, with amazingly little mental and physiological capabilities. Inspired by what little termites are able to build, Dr Justin Werfel of Harvard University created unsupervised, autonomous robots capable of building large-ish structures. With minds totally separate from the other robots (they have no idea what the others are doing), and no information from any central command, these robots have to rely on their own sensors to sense their environment and to build accordingly.

With these capabilities, Dr Werfel hopes that in a few years, this type of robot could be used to work in environments with the three D’s: Dangerous, Dirty, Dull, such as building levees to combat flooding. Looking forward a few years, perhaps decades, Werfel hopes that robots could be sent into even more places where it’ll be hard for humans to work, such as building shelters for humans on Mars so it’s there before the astronauts arrive.

Let’s just hope that they don’t make robotic termites that eat away at our homes.

 

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Fish Drives Car

By Owen Li | Published: February 14, 2014

Is your fish out of its fish-tank? It probably went out for a drive.

A company called Studio diip has recently created a mini aquarium on wheels. With a webcam positioned above the tank which feeds video to a Beagleboard, the car can steer according to the direction the fish is swimming in and the position of the fish inside the tank. This car is also steered by an arduino.

It’s unclear if the fish realizes whether or not the tank is moving or not, but if they did, we’ll be sure to be able to see some awesome fish-NASCAR races in the future.

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Robot cleans windows

By Owen Li | Published: February 1, 2014

Just unveiled at CES 2014, Ecovac Robotics’ Winbot can wash all windows of any thickness and size. Winner of an International CES Innovations 2014 Design and Engineering Award, Winbot 7 can scan and calculate the size of your window, calculating a customized path to clean them with its microfiber pads, not unlike the iRobot on floors.

With an on-board computer and multiple sensors, the Winbot can avoid obstacles and other potential hazards.  Its frame-less detection system enables it to clean mirrors, glass doors, shower stalls, and railings without falling to its doom.

 

 

 

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Walking Cube

By Owen Li | Published: January 31, 2014

We’ve all seen moving robots with wheels, rotors, and legs such as Big Dog, quad-copters, and many more. The new Cubli robot, like the before mentioned, can move, but unlike them, is a cube.

That’s right. Developed by researchers at the Institute for Dynamic Systems and Control of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, this robot has three wheels inside the cube, a three-axis accelrometer, and a three-axis gyroscope.

By taking advantage of angular momentum and torque reaction, the 5.9 cu.in. cube can jump from a stable position, then stop and balance itself on one of its edges or even one of its corners. It can keep balancing even if you push or disturb the surface that it’s on. It can also be commanded to fall in a particular direction. By performing all three actions successively – jumping up, balancing and falling – the Cubli can be made to move around.

It cannot speak though. At least not yet.

 

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