Robot Living

Hi folks, it’s time to visit our wayback machine and visit a robot created in the latter half of the last century.

David Colman created a robot called Commander Robot in the late 1960’s & early 1970’s that later evolved into Ralph Roger Robot.

Shown here is the Commander Robot version with David working on him.  He seemed very popular and made appearances all over the country from supermarkets in Bangor Maine to the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.

Commander Robot was originally built as part of the Ice Follies and could skate on the ice.

The robot’s creator, Dave Colman, demonstrates the radio gear that transmits to the robot’s 14-channel receiver to activate seven motors and control movement. In the robot are 50 pounds of batteries, clusters of servo switches, tape recorder, assorted lights and two 1/50th hp motors that drive sprockets that bite into the ice to make him move.

Wow, a robot with 50 pounds of batteries.  That is hard to imagine with such tiny robots as bristlebots, trimets and others available today. Check out more photos at the informative Cybernetic Zoo.

Link via (Cybernetic Zoo)

At the ILTCI 2010, (Intercompany Long Term Care Insurance Conference), in New Orleans on March 14th-17th, French robotic company Robotsoft will introduce the robot Kompaï.

Kompaï is a companion style robot that can speak, understand verbal commands, navigate a home and always stays connected to the internet.  Kompaï can remember appointments and make shopping lists as well.

This very first version is called Kompaï R&D, is intended for developers who want to implement their own robotics application for assistance of dependent persons.

The Robosoft press release states:

Kompaï is intended to help dependent persons in their daily lives. It is a mobile and communicative product. Somewhat like a dog, it has its “basket”, which is the recharging dock that it heads back to when its batteries are low. Equipped with speech, it is able to understand simple orders and give a certain level of response. It knows its position within the house, how to get from one point to another on demand or on its own initiative, and it remains permanently connected to the internet and all its associated services.

Click through for an impressive video of an elderly man interacting with Kompaï.

Link via (IEEE Spectrum)

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Tags: elderly, robosoft

For those of you you are still battling winter and snow, we give you RoboPlow from IdeaLaboratories.

This awesome beast has a 50 inch blade, 6 wheels and 660 amps of power.

See our post from last year about a similar snow shoveling robot.

Link via (Gizmodo)

Tags: snow

Kevin Haw has hacked a Robosapien to do his bidding over the internet.

Utilizing an Arduino and an Ethernet shield in between, he can make the robot high five and whistle among other cool things.

Complete project page with code at Arduino.cc.

Link via (Make)

Tags: arduino, robosapien

A new robot from MIT called MeBot has been unveiled recently.  This robotic avatar is designed to give the user a richer more interactive experience when communicating through live video.

The MeBot’s head tilts and the arms move to help convey the users mood and expression to other viewers.

We conducted an experiment that evaluated how people perceived a robot-mediated operator differently when they used a static telerobot versus a physically embodied and expressive telerobot. Results showed that people felt more psychologically involved and more engaged in the interaction with their remote partners when they were embodied in a socially expressive way. People also reported much higher levels of cooperation both on their own part and their partners as well as a higher score for enjoyment in the interaction.

Click through for a short video.

Link via (Dvice)

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Tags: avatar, MIT