It’s that time of year for me folks – exams and final projects. I’m swamped. So, here’s all the links I’ve built up over the past few days. Enjoy. I’ll be back on track in a week or two.

Air Force secret UAV."The new craft is referred to as Penetrating High Altitude Endurance (PHAE), and is thought to be able to cruise at 70,000-80,000 ft".

University of Texas researchers get $10 million USD to develop bionic arm. "The research is part of the Revolutionizing Prosthetics 2009 project sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency."

Frontline Robotics / Whitebox Robotics gives more details on the PC914 vaporbots robots. Improvements include, "Upgrade from USB 1.1 to USB 2.0" and a SDK. I’ll believe it when I see it. WBR/Frontline, let’s do an interview.

Japanese researchers demonstrate a legged … er … wheelchair legchair. Sci-fi jokes insue. More pictures and details here.

Korean company knocks off the Aibo with their "Genibo" bull terrier-bot. "’Genibo’ resemble bull terriers and are 30cm tall, 33.4 cm long and weigh 1.5 kg. The speech recognition feature enables the robots to understand and comply with 100 words including commands like, "come here," "sit," "wag your tail," and "do a headstand.""

LEGO Mindstorms NXT wallpaper and website icons. They’re seriously pushing this community aspect. A website toolkit?

New inductees into the Robot Hall of Fame.

Move over Chroino and Manoi, here comes a sexy fembot to draw attention.

Live feeds of the FIRST competition this weekend.


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There’s been lots of rumors swarming around that Radio Shack was killing the VEX Robotics line of toys. I got some news a month or so ago, but hesitated to post about it since it was totally unconfirmed. However, most of the VEX stock in my area was placed on deep discount and sold within a weekend.

I just got a PM today on the ROBOT Magazine forums pointing me to this press release from Innovation First, which states that Innovation First has bought the, "Vex® Robotics Design System brand name and trademark registrations from RadioShack Corporation." You may remember that Innovation First partnered with Radio Shack to develop the kit back a year or so ago.

Plans are to expand the line and continue production.


Vex can now be purchased off of Innovation First’s new Vex website, www.vexlabs.com. Also note that the VEX Development Kit and accessories are still available on Radio Shack’s website for deep discounts. Currently the kit is on sale for $150, discounted from $300.

After buying LEGO Mindstorms NXT and eyeballing several upcoming Pleos, I’m really torn as to weather I should drop the cash for a VEX system. Thoughts?

Related:

• DEMO 2006 Video of Ugobe Pleo 
• Pre-Order LEGO Mindstorms NXT on April 1st
• Robot Magazine Offers – Win A Robot Built By TV’s MythBusters
• Vex Robotics Programming Really Out?

Tags: [ VEX | LEGO Mindstorms | robots | pleo ]


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I know this is a little late, but nonetheless very interesting: a robotic birth simulator.  Noelle, the simulators name, is a full-sized life-like robot used in birthing training. Gaumard, the company that makes the simulator, sells the whole package for $20,000 USD.

 

What will they think of next?




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A while back we posted about an interview with Colin Angle, the co-founder and CEO of iRobot. Next up is an interview with Helen Greiner, co-founder and chairman of iRobot. Greiner discusses founding iRobot, her interest in robots (started with R2D2), and iRobot’s biggest setback (late night robot fire before a big deadline)

She also reveals she has a Roomba she’s named "Arnold", and discusses the possibility of using Roomba’s in educational environments by tapping into the serial interface.

Greiner also says that she hopes to branch into walking robots sometime in the future.


iRobot is also doing research into swarm robots.


Engadget also has more interesting tidbits about iRobot and Helen Greiner from an interview they did in Aug. of 2004.



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The AP has an interesting piece on Carnegie Mellon’s snake robots. The research, lead by Howie Choset, is aimed at disaster situations where a small snake could maneuver much better than a resuce worker.


The robots are semi-autonomous, and are remotely guided by a radio controller. They are controlled with servo motors and battery powered. The Snake’s website, shows video of them crawling in a sinusoidal motion, rolling, swimming, and crawling through pipes.

Unfortunately, Choset says the robots wont be ready for prime-time for another 5 to 10 years.

Another prominant snakebot builder is Dr. Gavin Miller. You’ll also want to check out this amazing amphibious snakebot from Japan.



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