Aldebaran’s New Nao Robot Demo

Aldebaran Robotics founder and CEO Bruno Maisonnier demos the latest version of the Nao humanoid robot. Read more: spectrum.ieee.org

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The Sarcos Robot

Benjamin Stephens is a Ph.D. student in the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. He is originally from Oklahoma, but received his undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering at Northwestern University. His PhD research focuses on the control of humanoid robot balance and push recovery for force-controlled robots. He is interested in the use of real-time optimal control for robust control of very complex systems. Using his knowledge and experience, he hopes to make legged/humanoid robots more capable of operating in rough and uncertain environments. He also believes this work will lead to the creation of new intelligent assistive devices such as prosthetics and exoskeletons. To learn more about Ben’s research and see other videos of the Sarcos Robot in action visit his personal webpage: www.cs.cmu.edu
Video Rating: 4 / 5

Robot plays table tennis (vs Robot, vs Human)

A humanoid robot system for table tennis playing developed by Zhejiang University, China was recently reported by Chinese media. The system consists of two humanoid robots. Each robot is 55kg in weight, 160cm in height and has 30 Degrees of freedom. This demo shows a rally between these two robots which last 176 strokes(about 2.5 minutes). This video also shows that one humanoid robot can rally with a human player with various ball speed and can strike the ball using either forehand or backhand.

FemiSapien’s Not Your Average Girl Robot

FemiSapien’s Not Your Average Girl Robot

WowWee’s newest addition to their line of robots is a female robot. The WowWee FemiSapien Humanoid Robot is a dully interactive dancing robot and has the most life-like movements as compared to any other robot manufactured by WowWee. This female robot has her very own language that consists of emotive sounds and it can also sense different gestures that you make. It responds to sounds, and will actually respond to your touch as well. It has the unique ability to interact with and control other robots made by WowWee.

A one-woman wonder WowWee announced this toy in January 2008, and slated it for a late summer release date. It should be a quick success, as there are very few robotic toys that can do what this one can do. There are three distinctive kinds of behavior for this little lady and it can show what she is truly capable of.

Attentive: Femisapien will see, hear, wander and dance interactively

Learning: You can create a dance routine for the robot that it will play back

Responsive: The dance routine is performed

Any of these behaviors can be accessed just by tilting her head. You can use her hands just like you would use joysticks. When you touch her hands, you’ll alter her movements. Her specialty is the ability to do an astounding 20 interactive routines as well as 36 different functions.

WowWee has really outdone themselves this time. With five different motors that allow for twelve degees of free movement, WowWee FemiSapien Humanoid Robot is very sophisticated in her walking movements, as well as other gestures. She has five different motors that allow for twelve degrees of free movement. She is controllable by sound, sight or touch and can detect music player. She will start to dance in time to the beat. You can create a dance routine and she will dance her little booty off! She has infrared senses, which enable her to see you from up to 1.2 feet away and she also has sound senses that allow her to hear you even if you are across the room.

Give her six AA batteries and WowWee FemiSapien Humanoid Robot is off to the dances. This robot is just a taste of what will come in future years for toy design. You’ll be amazed at how this robot can interact with you and your children. Because of the robotics involved, it is not recommended that Femisapien be played with outside.

Read more quality articles and pick up your own robot kit or robot toy at CoolRobotToys.com!

BYOR, Build Your Own Robot

BYOR, Build Your Own Robot

The Time Is Right:

The field of hobby robotics is more exciting today than ever before. The day when you will have a humanoid, walking, talking robot in your home that will do your cooking and cleaning looms ever closer. Short of having a real robotic maid or butler, there are many other options that can be built today on just about any budget. If you really want to enjoy a fun, reasonably priced hobby, you should try to build your own robots. There are many reasons why it makes sense create a robot from scratch rather than buying pre-made ones.

 

Affordable:

The technology that exists today staggers the mind in not only how advanced it has become, but also in how cheap it is to purchase. There are microcontrollers today that literally replace a room-sized computer of the previous century. The cost for such controllers can be well under 0 for a more-than-capable unit. Some can be purchased as kits to assemble and learn about computer architecture and electronics, others are pre-built units and some even come as single boards that are ready to “plug and play.”

Sensors for hobby robots have increased in functionality while they have also reduced in price. It has gotten to the point where advanced sensors like ultrasonic range detectors and infrared distance sensors even come with robotic toys like the Lego Mindstorms kits. The accuracy of these sensors is astonishing and affords the robotic hobbyist with very high-precision instruments capable of providing ample functionality on even an entry-level robot.

 

Programability:

It was formerly the case that many of these microcontrollers required a high-level understanding of computers, binary math and assembler language programming to operate. This restricted the field to schooled adults or older children with a great deal of mathematics background.

Today, many of these robotic products come with a computer interface that allows “building block” style components to be visually ordered on-screen in a graphical editor which allows even younger children the ability to understand logic programming and control-flow logic structures in an easy to understand format. These same programs usually also allow code-level programming to be performed as the student gains an understanding of the high-level logic. This allows them to get “closer to the metal” of the processor’s native language and architecture while providing skill-building opportunities.

Even more interesting for some, is that many of the common hobby robots have their loyal fan following, usually very technical people, who like to push the limits of the platforms. Often you can find compilers or interpreters written to support programming in other languages. This allows the clever and curious inventors to use their robotic for other purposes while learning ever more technical skills. You can often find more than one website devoted to groups like these.

 

Attack of the Toys:

If you are not as interested in learning programming software, you can also take existing toys and use them as a springboard to more advanced uses. Toys like the Furby of yesteryear gained a following by inspired experimenters who took them apart, rewired them, and put them back together in their own vision, to perform functions not intended by the original manufacturers.

Radio controlled toys are also an excellent springboard for robot development as they take care of a common problem with robots, locomotion. One of the persistent problems creating a robot from scratch is how to propel your robot accurately around the room. Motors require careful selection, knowledge of velocity, gearing and other complex formulas in order to operate accurately. Robots like the iRobot Roomba have solved these problems and thus it makes sense to reuse the work they have done rather than re-inventing the wheel.

Also, battery power can be tricky to learn and many of these platforms take the guesswork out of creating rechargable platforms that won’t run out of juice after a five minute stroll around your home.

Reusing these technologies allows the experiment to concentrate on higher-level functions like navigation, vision and other robotic applications that may be more appealing to the robotics enthusiast.

Read more quality articles and pick up your own robot kit or robot toy at CoolRobotToys.com!