You may have noticed (I hope you’ve noticed) that we here at BotJunkie spend a rather significant amount of time writing about robots. It’s sorta funny, then, that we’d be entirely unable to tell you just what exactly a robot is. To be fair, our definition of what constitutes a robot may be on the broad side (infringing on “robot-y”), but I wouldn’t even be able to hazard much of a guess as to the broad side of what. In next month’s issue of Servo Magazine, David Calkins (the guy nominally in charge of RoboGames, among other qualifications) authors a great column entitled, “What the Heck is a Robot, Anyway?” Here are some excerpts:

In 1921, Karl Capek wrote the play Rossum’s Universal Robots, thus coining the term “Robot.” (Okay, technically it was his brother Josef who amended Karl’s original term from either the Latin labori, or the Czech trudnik, but we won’t quibble. It was still Karl’s play.) In the play, they were not electro-mechanical humans. They were very much flesh and blood, manufactured in fleshy parts and later assembled. This very much follows the golum and Frankenstein mythos. And it is clearly the basis for follow-ups like Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep / Blade Runner, BattleStar Galactica, and to an extent, zombie mythos. Ah, but language is ever so fluid, and the original intended Corpus Novum in the above tales has since been replaced by “clone” in modern usage. Yet we grandfather “robot” in on the above stories. Yet under Capek’s original definition, none of us can call our creation a robot. And now, we have so very many different opinions on what a robot is. Ask 10 roboticists for a definition, and you’ll get 15 answers.

More, after the jump. (Read more…)

Getting robots to walk on two legs at all is certainly not easy, but getting them to walk like humans is harder. When humans walk, we shift our balance in such a way so that we’re constantly falling forward a little bit. It’s an unstable motion that’s very energy efficient, but hard for robots to duplicate since it requires dynamic regulation of movement. Flame, a 1.3m tall humanoid robot developed by TU Delft Ph.D student Daan Hobbelen, has a balance organ, seven motors, and a bunch of springs that all work together to make it the most advanced human-like walking robot in the world (according to its creator, anyhow). I’m not sure how to judge that claim, but even with all his metal bits exposed, Flame’s gait is noticeably humany. Video of Flame walking, after the jump. (Read more…)

“Study for Lit from Within,” an art installation by Ryan Wolfe, consists of a bunch of living plants (common horsetail) situated in a dark room. LED lights have been surgically embedded inside the plants, and when they’re turned on, the plants are able to photosynthesize the LED light, keeping themselves alive. Each plant has been programmed to brighten and dim to its own internal sun cycle. All together, the field of plants is supposed to “remind us how modern advances increasingly reconfigure lives while offering an imaginative glimpse of the future of this intertwining.” Er, yeah… They’re cyborg plants, man. No need to try and hype it up any more than that.

You can catch these cybernetic organisms at the Dam, Stuhltrager Gallery in Brooklyn up until June 29th.

[ Ryan Wolfe ] VIA [ Cool Hunting ]

This tiny little 7 gram robot can jump an astonishing 1.4 meters, or 27 times its own height. This is a factor of ten better than any other existing robot. It’s able to do this by mimicking insects like grasshoppers, who store energy in springy legs and then release it all at once. This robot uses a pager motor and a bunch of reduction gears to charge two actual springs, and then releases them to catapult itself upward. A small on-board battery provides enough enough energy for over 300 jumps at intervals of 3 seconds.

The great thing about jumping is that it combines the advantages of being on the ground with one of the most important advantages of being able to fly: obstacle avoidance. Wheeled, tracked, and legged vehicles are all at the mercy of extremely uneven terrain, especially obstacles that are significantly higher than the vehicle, and they’re all vulnerable (to some degree) to soft and shifty or slippery surfaces like sand or ice. As this video shows, the jumping robot has no trouble at all getting around:

Yes, it’s not exactly controllable. And yes, it doesn’t exactly land right-side up. But these are minor quibbles, and they’re being worked on. At the moment, the robot is entirely brainless, but researchers are looking to give it a microprocessor, some solar cells, and a sensor package. Swarms of small and cheap robots incorporating jumping technology would be ideal for exploring other planets, or even perhaps areas with hazardous and unpredictable terrain here on Earth.

Like the floor of my bedroom.

[ EPFL ] VIA [ Live Science ]

Even if it’s not immediately apparent, robotics competitions are about research and design in addition to being about fun and awesomeness. Think about it: the best robots generally win, so a big part of any competition is figuring out how to make the best robot. This is why DARPA made the Urban Challenge a Challenge, and why the European Space Agency turned to smart little soccer robots when they were looking for a way to repair solar cells in space:

Cool, right? Don’t forget, there’s gonna be all kinds of robotics competitions at RoboGames next month.

[ ESA ]

Getting robots to stick to things is a surprisingly robust field of research, and we’ve seen all kinds of wicked cool examples of climbing technology, from bots that suck to bots with claws to bots with super sticky gecko feet. SRI International’s electroadhesive robots use an entirely different technology to climb: static electricity.

Somehow, and I’m not entirely sure how, the SRI bots are able to “clamp” to conducting and non-conducting surfaces by generating the same type of electrostatic charge that will stick a balloon to your head if you rub it on your hair. This effect works on surfaces like wood, concrete, drywall, and even glass, and isn’t effected by dust or dirt. Plus, you can turn it on and off instantly. Clamping pressures range from 0.8 to 2.3 pounds per square inch, and only uses 20 microwatts/newton weight held of electricity. Look for this tech to appear in (surprise!) military recon bots, and (actual surprise) maybe even toys or, eventually, human wall climbing accessories.

Click through to the Popular Mechanics article to check out a video of one of these bots climbing drywall, which is about as exciting as it sounds.

[ SRI ] VIA [ Popular Mechanics ]

Robot soccer comes in all shapes and sizes. Including very, very, VERY small sizes. This weekend, NIST (the guys who keep track of what time it is) will host a RoboCup nanosoccer exhibition match, where the playing field is smaller than a grain of rice and the robots involved are about the same width as two of your hairs (the picture of bots on a playing field above was taken with a scanning electron microscope). Let me try and put that in perspective… Here’s a soccer nanobot perched on a grain of salt:

Rules of the game, and video, after the jump. (Read more…)

You really couldn’t ask for much more in a robot. Except for maybe some brains and a better sense of balance, that is.

VIA [ Robots Dreams ]

Everywhere except here in the states, Micromouse competitions seem to be big news. The premise is simple: autonomous little mousebots try to find their way to the center of a maze. In practice, this can be a tricky task to do quickly and efficiently. The mouse has to be able to detect walls, make decisions about where and when to turn, and remember where it’s been in the maze. After the mouse finds the center, it’ll try to figure out what the fastest route is, and then run it at top speed, which is startlingly fast for such a little bot (and so many sharp turns). This particular video was taken at Techfest 2008 in Bombay, India:

It’s nifty to see that even when the mouse is searching, it knows when it’s driving along a path it’s been on before, and speeds up perceptibly. One more video (crappier quality but a wicked fast micromouse) after the jump. (Read more…)

Vibrobots are pretty squirrelly little guys, easy to make by yourself and fun to watch. BrushBots are a sort of super-sized vibrobot, with multiple toothbrush “legs.” Stick them in a paper floor arena with some drops of paint, and watch them create a piece of artwork for you:

[Direct Link]

Designed by Christian Cerrito, BrushBots are simple, cheap, and do a much better job with abstract painting than I ever could. The paths they make aren’t purely random; as the bots cross over the drops of paint, the viscosity causes them to slow down and change direction, helping the piece evolve. Not bad for a hacked up toothbrush and a pager motor, I’d say.

[ Brush Bots ] VIA [ Cool Hunting ]