Archive for the ‘News’ Category
The video above shows the action of a gear-and-lever assembly designed to operate the legs of the TE+ND Rover, a gardening robot which will be on display at the Bay Area Maker Faire, May 19th & 20th. In the last week we have also been treated to another peek into the continuing drama of Q.bo’s exploration of its environment, as one Q.bo meets another, and a pair of robot arms one of which draws pictures while the other holds the drawing surface. (videos after the break)
While the robot in this video appears to be entirely glove controlled, rather than autonomous, it does demonstrate that at least one Russian team is making progress towards dextrous manipulation.
The 2012 VEX Robotics World Championship is over and I’ve returned with hundreds of photos. This year’s championship was held at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, CA. Last year, VEX cohosted several other events including BEST competitions, a Coast Guard robot contest, and a Boy Scount merit badge event. This year it was all VEX, all the time. The special guests were Nobel Prize winning physicist Dr. Douglas D. Osheroff, Dave Lavery of NASA, and Miral Kotb’s dance troupe iLuminate. Read on for more photos and coverage of the event.
Dale Dougherty, founder and general manager of Maker Media, publishers of MAKE Magazine and a division of O’Reilly Media, interviews Alasdair Allan, astrophysicist and author of Learning iPhone Programming: From Xcode to App Store, Programming iPhone Sensors, Basic Sensors in iOS: Programming the Accelerometer, Gyroscope, and More, Geolocation in iOS: Mobile Positioning and Mapping on iPhone and iPad, and iOS Sensor Apps with Arduino: Wiring the iPhone and iPad into the Internet of Things. The interview concentrates on the last of these books and the quickly evolving context within which it was written.
President Obama arrived in Boulder today, primarily to deliver a speech at the University of Colorado in support of extending the halving of student loan interest rates, currently due to expire July 1st. But before repairing to the Coors Events Center to deliver that speech, he made a quick visit to The Sink (locally famous because Robert Redford worked there while attending CU). The President made the rounds of those inside and then stepped outside to discover that a crowd had gathered around the restaurant. In that crowd was one of the team members from Orbotix, who had with him a Sphero robotic ball, which he demonstrated. He then turned the controller (iPhone?) over to President Obama, who tried it out for himself.
Humans apply a moderate amount of morality and other human characteristics to robots that are equipped with social capabilities and are capable of harming humans, new findings show.
The above video shows Tom Lauwers of Bird Brain Technologies unboxing their Hummingbird robotics kit, which appears to be quite close to being ready for market.
In the above video, posted by WillowGaragevideo, Adam Stambler, a student at Rutgers University, who spent last summer working at Willow Garage, explains how rosserial can help alleviate the need for writing new drivers from scratch when attaching new hardware or assembling a new machine.
At last week’s Sea-Air-Space Exposition, sponsored by the Navy League, General Dynamics showed it’s Knifefish Surface Mine Countermeasure Unmanned Undersea Vehicle (SMCM UUV), intended to be incorporated into the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) mine countermeasures mission package. The 20 ft., 3000 pound submersible will prowl for 16 hours at a time, to detect and identify mines in high-clutter underwater environments without putting sailors in harm’s way, including mines that are suspended in the ocean, resting on the sea floor or buried.
The Knifefish will help alleviate what’s seen as a deficiency in the LCS’s collection of capabilities. UUVs have been integral to the Navy’s planning process for some time, as evidenced by the now declassified 2004 report The Navy Unmanned Undersea Vehicle (UUV) Master Plan.
General Atomics Aeronautical Systems has announced the near-term availability
of a trio of field retrofits for the Predator B (MQ-9 Reaper) Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS). Taken together, these enhancements increase the endurance of the Reaper from 27 to 42 hours, or, without the extended wings, from 27 to 37 hours. The upgrades consist of stronger landing gear, underwing fuel pods, and longer wings that take the wingspan to 88 feet. (via Danger Room)