Via DIY Drones comes this video of the Stanford STARMAC (Stanford Testbed of Autonomous Rotorcraft for Multi-Agent) quadcopters:

STARMAC, the Stanford Testbed of Autonomous Rotorcraft for Multi-Agent is a testbed of 6 quadrotor helicopter unmanned aerial vehicles that fly indoors and outdoors to experiment with autonomous agent algorithms. This video presents an overview of the control system, the vehicle capabilities, and the experimental applications for the testbed. Results of many experimental flights are shown, along with some fun flight results that push the limits of what the vehicles should be able to handle.

Stanford quadcopters rock!

Climbing stairs. Not as easy as it looks. I know this from personal experience. I like how the winning approach is to favor one leg. That's how I did it, before my hip replacement. I did NOT however slide down stairs sideways!

RoboGames 2008: Stair Climbing Challenge

This enterprising builder is constructing a humanoid robot from little more than Shapelock plastic, card, curtain rods, rings, and finials, and bargain basement electric screwdrivers for the motors. I'll be interested to see how this progresses.

Android 10 [via Hacked Gadgets]

Related:

• Crabfu's SwashBot 3, now crabbier

"PIO: meet / greet" by the artist group / collective, Finishing School, is a semi-autonomous drone that moves through public spaces to send salutations to people in the six official languages of the United Nations. Built from what looks like the innards of an RC car, portable megaphone, distance sensors to detect pedestrians in order to know when to spout out its on board greetings, the device would probably be confiscated quickly in most public spaces in the US. Still, it's good to see that more than just English is represented here.

Finishing School PIO

Matt Kirkland peels back our illusions about cute robot toys, via Bot Junkie. The machine inside the ghost?

The NXT STEP's BlueToothKiwi made an NXT Wall-E; he's shared instructions on NXTLOG.

He also points us to the adorable Wall-E Joe Meno made out of LEGO - there are lots of pictures in his Flickr set. Bigger eyes!

More:
Disney intros new bots @ Maker Faire
HOW TO - Build your own Wall-E robot

This Saxophone playing robot from Japan is pretty adept at its craft. Check out the video at the link below of it tearing up John Coltrane's "Giant Steps." Also there are some nice close-up photos of the onboard gears and motors.

Japanese saxophone-playing robot proves we have come a long way

The instructables robot contest deadline has been extended to July 13. Prizes include a trip to the 2009 RoboGames in the San Francisco, a RoboPhilo Walking Android kit, and instructables gear. Randy says, "It doesn't have to be [instructions for] a full robot. It can be instructions to make any part of a robot or almost anything robot-related!" So put on your tutorial hat and make an instructable for the contest!

This simple hack shows you how to increase the transmission range of any RC car by at least 50 feet by adding some aluminum foil to the remote control. Watch the video for the simple solution.

[via]

The "WaveSynth 2.0" by Leo Peschta is a digital instrument that creates sound through the use of mechanical valves in a water basin and an array of sensors to detect the pattern and movement of the waves. The resulting data is sent to a computer which then synthesizes the data into a sound composition. Nice construction and more info on the valves construction at the link below.

WaveSynth 2.0

This site has detailed instructions on how to turn a Mini XM-177 Airsoft rifle into a computer-controlled, servo-actuated gun.

Robot Airsoft [via]

There's an old jargon term I love: "technical butt sniffing," which is when two geeks size up each others technical mojo. This vid brings a whole new meaning to the term, as two bio-mechanical critters, one dog and one crab, try to determine who has more DOF.

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Sea snakes live in water, and even terrestrial snakes sometimes show swimming on water surface. In fact, the mechanism of snakes' propulsion is almost same both in water and on ground. An amphibious snake-like robot ACM-R5 takes advantage of this fact. It can operate both on ground and in water undulating its long body.

The joint of ACM-R5 consists of an universal joint and bellows. It was developed on the basis of the previous model HELIX, which was designed for research of spirochete-like helical swimming. An universal joint plays a role of bones, and bellows do a role of an integument. ACM-R5 can form a smooth shape due to this joint structure, and it is important for effective locomotion. To be precise, the universal joint has one passive twist joint at the intersection point of two bending axis to prevent mechanical interference with bellows.

ACM-R5 is equipped with paddles and passive wheels around the body. To generate propulsive force by undulation, the robot need a resistance property as it glides freely in tangential direction but cannot in normal direction. Due to the paddles and passive wheels, ACM-R5 obtains that character both in water and on ground.

The control system of ACM-R5 is an advanced one. Each joint unit has CPU, battery, motors, so they can operate independently. Through communication lines each unit exchanges signals and automatically recognizes its number from the head, and how many units join the system. Thanks to this system operators can remove, add, and exchange units freely and they can operate ACM-R5 flexibly according to situations.

Type "about:robots" in Firefox 3.0 to see this little Klaatu barada nikto from our benevolent metallic brethren. [Thanks, Jay!]

For three hot and sweaty nights in July, punk music and robots collide at the ICA in a series of exciting and evolving gigs called Neurotic. Neurotic highlights the neurology associated with the essential human experience of pleasure, learning, taste and ageing within the context of the instinct to dance.

Artist Fiddian Warman fronts 'Neurotic and the PVCs' when they play to an audience of humans and three 2-metre tall punk loving robotic versions of Fiddian's younger self. Each robot has the ability to pogo up to an imposing height of 2.3 metres. Controlling these robots is a Neural Network modeled on the neurology of the human brain and educated in punk music.

The performances will be at ICA London July 3, 4, 5, 2008.

Neurotic and the pogoing robots [via]

Here's the amazing Crabfu's latest creation. In other fu news, I-Wei's Swashbot3 won Gold Medal for Best of Show at RoboGames last weekend! Congrats, mate!

Related:

• Swashbot build videos
• Crabfu's SwashBot 3, now crabbier
• Say hello to the Swashbot

This incredible video shows an example of "tele-surgery" techniques with the example of a surgeon remotely controlling robotic arms to fold a penny-size origami crane. Although the precision is pretty amazing, we wonder how much the average citizen will want a robot (even though it is remotely attached to a doctor) poking around inside their intestines.

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It's hard not to bust a gut laughing at these mini-humanoids skittering around the ring, duking it out. Of the 1st RT Battle Cup, Robots Dreams writes:

Watching the humanoid battles at RoboGames 2008 yesterday we noticed how impressive the larger, higher torque designs are for the crowd. The Robit team from Korea, with their 4+ kg bots, along with Zog and Oro from Farrell Robotics, put on a great, and very realistic show.

With that in mind, we wanted to remind everyone that it isn't just power. Speed, technique, and especially strategy, play a huge part in determining who wins. Take, for example, the RT Corp exhibition match (April, 2008), between Seega and Shiranuhi.

Although Shiranuhi is a well known ROBO-ONE champion, created and piloted by Dr. GIY, and totally out-powered/out-weighed the smaller Seega, the results showed how technique, strategy, and the will to win can succeed in the end.

[via]

Related:

• MAKE @ Robogames 2008
• RoboGames 2008 -The world's largest open robot competition - THIS WEEKEND (Bay Area, CA)

Here's an industrial robot controlled by a Wimote. The builder writes:

This is a small presentation of a university project I have worked on for the last 6 months.

Using a real-time system the orientation of the Wii Remote is polled and sent to the Stäubli TX 60 industrial robot.

The concept is stolen from a game named Kororinpa but the graphics are little more realistic :-)

This was done at the chair Robotics and Embedded Systems Knoll of the Technical University of Munich.

[via]

G E T - D O W N .

[via Matrixsynth]

Related:
Robot rock group readies for next gig

Robert Oschler, of RobotsRule, sent us news of these new videos WowWee has just released, showing their "Femisapien" (ugh) robot, which features poseable scripting. In the first video, WowWee (and BEAM) robotics guru Mark Tilden shows how the scripting works. The second, rather goofy, video shows two bots fencing as they play back their scripts.

More about the Femisapien at RobotsRule.

Robot rock!

the Trons practicing "Sister Robot" in the lounge before their up and coming Ignition Fringe Festival shows!

My pal Jesse Hurdus, who helped me out on my robot book, was also part of Virginia Tech's VictorTango Urban Challenge Team. He writes to Robots.net:

"Thought I'd send some interesting news your way. Team VictorTango's base vehicle platform for the Urban Challenge (which placed third, just behind Stanford), is now being sold as a product by TORC Technologies. Of course, this is just the fully Drive-By-Wire Ford Hybrid Escape (minus sensors and A.I.), but its very cool none-the-less!" Team VictorTango was Virginia Tech's entry in the Urban Grand Challenge. You can find out more about on the Team VictorTango website. Their robotic vehicle, known as Odin, was loaded with sensors that included SICK laser scanners, IBEO Alasca laser scanners, NovAtel GPS/INS, and multiple video cameras. TORC Technologies worked with the VT team as a subcontractor on the vehicle, developing technologies that included motion planning algorithms for use with Ackerman steering, driving behaviors, situation classifiers, and a JAUS-based software architecture.

Go VT!

Related:


Scott Beale / Laughing Squid's coverage.

A BEAM Pummer, made with 16 BPW-34 Siemens Osram 1/8" solar cells as the power source.

Solar Engine 2 [via]

From the pages of MAKE:

Part robotic plant life, part techno-sculpture, these desktop toys are easy and fun to make, the pummer!. Here's the free article, from the pages of MAKE 08 - Toys and Games:

Click here to download the PDF, or get this PDF and many others including our audio and video via iTunes (RSS 2.0 feed).

Here's an episode of EngineeringTV featuring a gecko-inspired wall-walker being developed at Carnegie Mellon University.

Waalbot Wall Climbing Robot

RoboGames is the world's largest open robot competition (even the Guinness Book of World Records says so!) We invite the best minds from around the world to compete in over 70 different events. Combat robots, walking humanoids, soccer bots, sumo bots, and even androids that do kung-fu. Some robots are autonomous, some are remote controlled - but they're all cool! As an open event, anyone can compete - this means you.

The International RoboGames returns to San Francisco for its fifth year of hosting robot builders, engineers, scientists, and ordinary garage builders from around the world as they go for the laser-etched gold, silver, and bronze medals! Come to RoboGames for three solid days of mechanical sportsmanship, gearhead mayhem, and all the things your mom told you to never, ever do with science.

Hundreds of participants, vendors, cool workshops, nifty exhibits and people just like you who have bent, engineered, tweaked, fiddled and built their way to the Olympics Of Robots!

More:

• RoboGames 2008 schedule.
• RoboGames 2008 tickets.
• RoboGames 2008 on Twitter.
• More @ Laughing Squid.

Although this is this maker's first attempt at Roomba hacking, we applaud the fact that he is attempting to make his Roomba less robotic, and more manual. By connecting up a Wiimote to his Roomba, he has built the world's first "Wiimba" and has basically changed the entire automated system into an old fashioned vacuum cleaner of sorts.

Wiimote+Roomba=Wiimba

Read more about Wall Racers: Your home is a race track

By way of Hack A Day comes this hexapod robot that does CNC fabrication.

Only recently has [Matt] started playing with CNC. First, he did a pen plotter proof of concept. Now The bot can mill 3D surfaces in polystyrene. It's still a little coarse and will probably always be a bit imprecise since it's not bolted down. He's also still planning to convert it from standard 1/8inch bits to 3mm router bits.

Hit the link above to see what the bot is working away on.

Hexapod Robot CNC router