AusRobotics

Amit Goffer, who was paralyed in a 1997 accident, has invented ReWalk, which gives paraplegics the chance to walk again. Unfortunately, Goffer can't use the system himself, as it requires the use of your arms, which he doesn't have full use of. The system, which requires crutches to help with balance, consists of motorized leg supports, body sensors and a back pack containing a computerized control box and rechargeable batteries. The user picks a setting with a remote control wrist band -- stand, sit, walk, descend or climb -- and then leans forward, activating the body sensors and setting the robotic legs in motion. "It raises people out of their wheelchair and lets them stand up straight," Goffer said. "It's not just about health, it's also about dignity." Damn, that's probably the awesomest thing I've heard all day. Good looking, Goffer. I just hope these things don't fall into the hands of the non-paralyzed, lest they build a superhuman army. Again, awesome. Hit the jump for three more pictures, the second of which is Goffer himself.(author unknown)

The Evil Mad Scientist Labs folks have conducted exhaustive investigation into the value of objects relative to their weight, starting with coins and bills and working through commodities like flour, and thence to exotics like human blood and antimatter. This is extremely useful information if you're ever trying to get a lot of valuta through a narrow aperture.
People have been saying that the new industrial grade swimsuits like the LZR Racer are worth their weight in gold. As you can see, this is clearly inaccurate. But such a suit is worth its weight in marijuana or industrial diamonds.

At the high end of this graph is gold (the only thing worth exactly its own weight in gold!), right next to the cost of launching a pound of stuff to low earth orbit on the ISS. Putting that into perspective here: You might as well build your whole spaceship out of $20 bills-- it still would cost less than putting it up there. It could almost be made of solid gold for that price.

The monetary density of things

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Firefox only: Mozilla Labs unveils the first prototype of a natural language web service connector called Ubiquity, a Firefox extension that adds a command panel to any web page. Ubiquity will look familiar to Quicksilver, Launchy, or Enso users: you invoke Ubiquity with a key combination and the text field drops down command suggestions as you type. Ubiquity's built-in command set consists of "user-centric mashups" that let you perform tasks using various web services in one place using natural language. For example, you can insert a Google map into a new Gmail message (invoke Ubiquity and type "map [business name]"); you can look up a topic on Wikipedia in-page without switching tabs; you can select a paragraph of text in a foreign language and translate it in-page, or map a list of addresses from Craiglist by just selecting them. See these examples and more in practice in the introductory video.

Like Quicksilver's three-paned subject-verb-object expressions, what makes Ubiquity exciting is that it lets you interact with the web in the natural way you want to do things ("email this to John") instead of making you re-order the steps to accommodate the browser ("copy this link to clipboard, open new tab, start new email, enter John's address, and paste link into body"). Ubiquity's smart, too—it has access to your email contacts, for example, and can refer to the current page as "this." Here's what emailing an image to a contact named "Chris" looks like in the Ubiquity pane.

That said, convincing non-power users to hit a key combination to interact with what's essentially a souped-up command line may be a hard sell. But, the command line is indeed making a comeback, and even as an early prototype Ubiquity is a very exciting step in that direction for application launcher lovers. Ubiquity is still an early prototype, but version 0.1 is available for download now from Mozilla Labs.

Introducing Ubiquity [Mozilla Labs via Waxy]

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Traditional robotics applications such as CNC and welding have relied on the idea that robots should be extremely rigid, with very precise mechanics and encoders. This leads to robots that are very bad at interacting with the real world. Animals, which are very good at interacting with the real world, are full of wiggly, springy, imprecise actuators. A new paper (PDF format) from the CMU Robotics Institute looks at the benefits of adopting this principle in robot leg design. Using compliant, spring-like mechanisms, the robot can recycle energy and exert higher mechanical power when walking or running. The researchers examine a range of compliance using a variable stiffness leg, called the Electric Cable Differential (ECD) Leg.(author unknown)

Martin Montesano's giant "Walking Beast" isn't the first robot spider ever made, but it is the only one I can recall that is this enormous and has the ability to take on passengers. His 12,000-pound, 23-foot-long creation was built over the course of three years at an expense of $50,000—and it can carry up to six passengers in its steel belly and two (including the driver) in the head.

If you are fortunate enough to actually ride in the Walking Beast, don't expect heart-pounding, edge of your seat thrills. Its Chevy V8 engine only musters up enough power to move the steel behemoth along at around 5 mph—although it does shake the ground up to 500 feet away with each step. Montesano is planning on making some upgrades to the Walking Beast in the near future, including an elevator system to load passengers. Perhaps he should start touring the country offering rides at $10 a pop—sort of like a nerdy adult version of pony rides at a state fair. [Pop Sci]

Sean Fallon

With the goal of inspiring and educating young robot builders everywhere, kidbots.com's mission is to show how millions of old, obsolete computers can be turned into programmable robots. Included is a brief introduction to electronic components, PC components, CPU operation, and programming. Special attention is paid to use of the PC's parallel printer port as general purpose I/O to control actuators and read digital sensors, along with simple code examples in BASIC. The site is summed up with a fun animated gif showing a tin-can robot walking across a pile of old motherboards.
(author unknown)

A personal summary of the Nokia Workshop on Machine Consciousness 2008 For someone like me, seriously interested in Machine Consciousness,...(author unknown)

The video speaks volumes:

I don't know about you, but I think the intimidation factor definitely makes these a lot cooler.

More in the gallery at the manufacturer's site. None appear to be deploying weaponry... yet!

[via The Robot Group]

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Robotics | Digg this!Luke Iseman

Boston Dynamics is back with another amazing bot - RiSE is a small six-legged robot that climbs vertical terrain such as walls, trees and fences. RiSE’s feet have claws, micro-claws or sticky material, depending on the climbing surface. RiSE changes posture to conform to the curvature of the climbing surface and a fixed tail helps RiSE balance on steep ascents. RiSE is about 0.25 m long, weighs 2 kg, and travels 0.3 m/s. See the site for a video demonstration where this little guy scales a building - Waalbot wall climbing robot

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Robotics | Digg this!Collin Cunningham

For the first time in Michigan, a diseased kidney has been surgically removed at Henry Ford Hospital using highly sophisticated 3-D robotics through a single incision.(author unknown)

The TerraMax autonomous truck is based on Oshkosh’s Medium Tactical Vehicle Replacement (MTVR) defense truck platform. Most recently, TerraMax competed in the 2007 Darpa Urban Challenge. The MTVR was designed for the US Marine Corps with a 70% off-road mission profile. TerraMax's unmanned ground vehicle kit does not interfere with the conventional operation of the vehicle. A robust sensor suite allows for 360-degree situational awareness around TerraMax. Elements of the autonomous navigation kit could be used to enhance driver awareness. The complete kit could be used in applications such as snow removal on airport runways. Dr. Tony Tether, DARPA director said, "The first autonomous vehicle to be fielded by the military most likely will resemble Oshkosh Truck's TerraMax entry because the military is already using the basic truck it's based on."

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CurtisEllzey

The RoboBuilder robotics kits from a Korean company of the same name (or is it IRobou?) is now available for purchase from Trossen Robotics. The kits, which are similar to the Bioloid robotics kits from Robotis, employ modular components, like motors and sensors, to allow builders to quickly create a wide variety of robotic creations. RoboBuilder touts features such as metal ball bearings, PID motor control for precise motion, and reverse/over voltage protection. The kits also come with distance and sound sensors.

The basic RoboBuilder kit starts at $420 and goes all the way up to $1,500 for the Expert kit. Have any of our readers played with the kits yet? Let us know how they are by leaving a comment.

You can check out a video of the RoboBuilder humanoid model after the break.

This sassy little thing is the brainchild of L. Scott Hudson, who recently participated in MAKE's Dorkbot Austin robot building event. This gal is kind of like the Twitter box bot we wrote about this week (also a MAKE find), but it's got the added bonus of moxie. It also gives you step-by-step self-assembly instructions in the video. See? Robots are ready to start building themselves. Earth: Doomed.

The instructions are simple enough. There's the Microsoft speech API, the LED mouth, some circuitry, and lastly the googly plastic eyes from a craft store. It's certainly no EVE, but it's a start. [MAKE via Tecnhabob]

Jack Loftus

All those beautiful, beautiful visions spinning about in your head have been made into gorgeous alcoholic reality. Ladies and gentlemen, Bar2D2:

Bar2D2 is capable of making your basic cocktails, and also incorporates a beer elevator to put a frosty brew into your hands upon request. The beer elevator is the business bits of a Harbor Freight electric caulking gun.

The base is a electric power chair, and he can schmooze with the cocktail crowd with his extensive R2D2 vocabulary, courtesy an R2D2 voice module and a Team Delta RCE210 relay board.

The beer elevator is enclosed by a spiffy polycarbonate cocoon, and the ice bucket lights up.

How prosh can a cocktail-slinging robot get??

Jamie Price, the builder, has a great set of photos of his progress here.

Bar2D2 has been a scant five months in the making, by a guy who has a day job and everything. Jamie credits stick-to-itiveness and BAD (Beer Aided Design) for his success.

Here’s his parts list:

My goal:
Create an rc bot that is loosely (very) modeled after R2D2 for the sole purpose of being a mobile bar/entertainment center.

Features:
Clear lexan dome that houses a 6 liquor bottle carousel
Cups that have LED color shift (damn I love ebay)
Motorized Ice bin (remotely actuated)
Beer dispensing elevator (remotely actuated)
Neon, LED lighting accents
Motorized drivetrain
R2D2 sound effects
12 volt sla powered with on board ac/dc wall converter for long party times
2 victor 883 escs
futaba 6 channel radio
materials: metal, 3/4″ finish grade ply, sintra, lexan, chrome, plastic

If all goes well (and it has been!) Bar2D2 will be accepting his public and signing autographs at DragonCon in Atlanta, Georgia, August 29-September 1st (that’s next weekend campers!).

We’re also hoping Bar2D2 makes it to Vienna for RoboExotica this year.

[via The Robot Fighting League Forum]

The Tech Shop in Menlo Park, CA is offering a class on how to build a 60-pound combat robot.

Here is your chance to build your own fire-spewing, buzz-saw wielding combat robot with the help and guidance of veteran combat robot builders!

In this 2-day full-weekend class, you and your team member will learn to create a 60-pound fighting robot platform with help from the world’s best combat robot builders.

The $595 registration fee allows two team members to attend and a $995 materials fee covers supplies for creating your own machine of mass destruction.

Filed under: robots hacks, news

VIA, the Taiwan-based supplier of chipsets and low power processors, showed off its latest creations at the Taipei International Robot Show. The Lynxmotion Johnny 5 kit, based on the robot from the animated film Short Circuit, is powered by the compact VIA EPIA P700 board, and aimed at beginner robotic hobbyists. VIA claimed that its use of the latest board allows for much easier software development. VIA also showcased the Mini-ITX powered Vecna Battlefield Extraction-Assist Robot (or BEAR), a cuddly-looking robot with potential uses in military and rescue operations.

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Kimberly Lau

Burglary suspect James Prevatt III, hunkered down for three days in a Maryland motel with his girlfriend, has threatened to shoot a robot that has kindly been bringing them burgers, pizza, soda, and cigarettes. The above headline screenshot is from CNN. Man threatens robot (CNN)

Burglary suspect James Prevatt III, hunkered down for three days in a Maryland motel with his girlfriend, has threatened to shoot a robot that has kindly been bringing them burgers, pizza, soda, and cigarettes. The above headline screenshot is from CNN. Man threatens robot (CNN)

Every wonder what it would look like if a bunch of little robots ganged up on a kid and dragged it across the floor? This. The video is 3:00 long, so just let it load and then skip towards the end for the full effect. Youtube Thanks Michael, you wanna come over and help me install casters on the kids' PJs?(author unknown)

Here's an animation made from a sequence of stereo images taken from a mobile robot moving along a corridor. Original images were supplied by Jose-Luis Blanco-Claraco and processed using the Sentience perception system. The stereo correspondence method used is based upon a paper by Jenny Read and Bruce Cumming, and utilizes gabor filters with three wavelengths and an anticorrelated search strategy.

Lighter intensities represent big disparities or things which are judged to be closer to the camera and darker ones are farther away.

As is often the case with these things there is still a fair proportion of bad stereo matches, especially on the ceiling and some from reflections on the floor. The bright lights on the ceiling (which you can't actually see in the video) are causing pixels to saturate, and that's the main reason for the bad matches in that area. However, the mere fact that you can see anything distinguishable at all is a big improvement upon other stereo correpondence methods which I've tried in the past. It can be easy to get a good looking result on one or two contrived test images, but often that doesn't translate into a general solution.



A peculiarity of this method is that the matching search is exclusively confined to one dimension along each image row. Previously I have assumed that some amount of vertical search would be needed in order to disambiguate features with different vertical orientations, but it appears - at least from this data set - that a vertical component to the search is unnecessary.

When this algorithm is tested on the Surveyor stereo camera using a higher vertical compression ratio (only sampling every 4th image row) a round table shows up quite well in the depth map, despite not having a very distinct texture apart from a faint grain.