Robot Living

Oscar, a British black cat had a terrible farming accident involving a combine harvester and lost both of his rear paws and part of his legs last October.

Oscar was taken to Noel Fitzpatrick, a veterinarian in Surrey.  Working with a team from University College London led by Professor Gordon Blunn,  Mr Fitzpatrick was able to create prosthetic legs called intraosseous transcutaneous amputation prosthetics, or itaps. Mr Fitzpatrick states:

“We have managed to get the bone and skin to grow into the implant and we have developed an ‘exoprosthesis’ that allows this implant to work as a see-saw on the bottom of an animal’s limbs to give him effectively normal gait.”

Click through for a video of Oscar and be sure to catch Noel Fitzpatrick in a BBC documentary called The Bionic Vet, airing June 30 on BBC One.

(BBC) via (PopSci)

(more…)

Tags: animal, bionic, cat, uk

Using a Javelin Stamp as the micro controller brain and an ultrasonic range sensor for eyes, Steffen Schütte from Germany created this cute six legged robot called RoboSpider.

Based on readings from the sensors, the robot then executes one of the following four actions: forward, escape, feign death, dodge.

Steffen has gone on to create RoboSpider II and a Hexapod.

Click through for a video.

Link via (Wired)
(more…)

Tags: spider

Sparkfun’s competition from last year seemed like a ton of fun.  The basic idea is to create a vehicle that can go completely around SparkFun headquarters in Colorado.  Once the vehicle has started, you cannot assist it with a remote control.  You are however, allowed to retrieve planes from trees, as happened last year. The vehicle can roll, walk, fly or whatever other way of moving you can think of.

Our favorite entrant in this years competition is the cat robot.  Complete with tinfoil to control its brain, the team is not revealing how its new stealth cat controlling technology actually works.  Last year the competition was held on April 15, no word on this years date yet.

Check out all of the teams entering over at SparkFun or click through for last years video.

Link
(more…)

Tags: competition, SparkFun

Pesky pigeons making a mess of your parking lot? Seagulls being a complete nuisance? Well then you need a Robop. Robop is a robotic peregrine falcon that scares away other pesky birds like pigeons or seagulls.

Robop was invented by John Donald  in Edingurgh and can been controlled by your WAP enabled phone. A solar recharging station and a trailer are some of the other available options.

Here are some top tips on how to get rid of problem birds.

• Don’t put bird deterrents everywhere, as eventually the birds will become exhausted, land and realise there is no danger after all.

• Keep the element of surprise – if you have a deterrent move it around.

• Understand your prey: pigeons are particularly terrified of owls, as these ruthless predators will pursue their victims even while they are roosting in crannies.

• Noise, movement and mimicking the behaviour of real predators is key to the success of Robop.

I wonder if robotic birds play nice with robotic squirrels?

Download Robop PDF Brochure.

Click through for a video.

Link via (Scotsman)

(more…)

Tags: falcon, robot, Scotland

NC State has been working on a new MAV or micro-aerial vehicle  project, a robotic bat.

Using a shape-memory metal alloy for the joints and powerful muscle wires, they hope to emulate a real bat as closely as possible.

They hope to better understand flapping flight and also create a surveillance tool that would scare the neighbors.

Link via (Engadget)

Tags: bat