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.
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.
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.
Cycler robot, sometimes called Recycler, by David Buckley has been in business for more than 10 years.
Cycler was created to help teach children to recycle and is used in school presentations. Cycler can control some functions on his own, but for some bigger functions he is controlled by a handler. See more about the school programs and cost here, or download the Recycler pdf file.
David Buckley is a roboticist from the UK who has been making robots since the 1970’s.
Click through for a video of handlers practicing with Cycler.
27
Feb
SparkFun’s 2010 Autonomus Vehicle Competition
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.
