In Review

Posted October 26, 2008 by Ash 2 Comments »

Does anyone have a really large electromagnet?

It was lucky that Terminator 3 was on TV in Melbourne last night because I may soon need to know how to terminate a pack of robot hunter/killers myself if the US Army’s planned Multi-Robot Pursuit System becomes a reality. The system is designed to allow a human operator overseeing the partially autonomous robot “pack” to “to search for and detect a non-cooperative human subject.” – Minority Report anyone? Man, the Big Dog video is unnerving already and that is without pack hunting capability built in!

More from New Scientist

It’s just like a normal Servo motor. Only different.

Need to choreograph your droid’s servos to do something but can’t be bothered writing a simulator or some other control system? Matt as part of Thing-A-Day has a good new article on using a servo motor as an input device. Using a servo in this way allows you to have force feedback or to train motion as they do with industrial robots. Check it out below!

Using a Servo as an input device

Stop press! Robotics has reached it’s peak.

Ok I don’t understand what is going on in this exactly other than:

  1. It is a robot
  2. It pours beer
  3. I think it is initiated by a message over the Pownce network
  4. It pours beer

Air Fish


Awesome motion control and implemention! :) Looks like it could be remade fairly easily. Just got to keep the weight down.

Simple Solar Projects

Solar is the future so get into it now before Shell Mega Oil gets into the game and steals all of the photons. If you are new to solar and wondering how to get started with powering a small project then you could do worse than check out Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories’ new article on solar projects.
I may use some of the techniques in it for one of my planned projects, the “AutoWaterer 5000 Series – Augmented Autonomous Flora Hydration System”. Ok, it’s really a solar powered bucket of water but no-one needs to know that! :)
Check it out!

2 Comments

  • On 10.28.08 higgsman said:

    Hi there,

    sorry Ash, May i ask some question ?

    Where is the cool electronics shopping market center in Sydney ?

    Thanks in advance.

  • On 11.04.08 Ash said:

    Hey mate, not sure what shopping centre that is sorry.

    I’m based in Melbourne and still get lost here. Although less so nowadays with the GPS on my phone :)