I’m not generally one to get freaked out by snakes. My best friend (who is coincidentally my pet) is a bigass black snake, in fact. I’m also not generally one to get freaked out by robots (with some exceptions). If I did, I probably wouldn’t have lasted as long as I have in this job. Combine the two, and I’m still good… Or I thought I was, until I saw this thing. Just wait for it to jump in the pool:

Guh. So creepy. ACM-R5 (as it is fetchingly known) moves the same way snakes do, by being slippery only in the direction it wants to go (thanks to wheels on its lateral fins) and undulating its body to push against the ground. The same type of motion works just as well in water, which is great, just great. The control system, at least, is cool in a non-terrifying way:

The control system of ACM-R5 is an advanced one. Each joint unit has CPU, battery, motors, so they can operate independently. Through communication lines each unit exchanges signals and automatically recognizes its number from the head, and how many units join the system. Thanks to this system operators can remove, add, and exchange units freely and they can operate ACM-R5 flexibly according to situations.

Super, so it can get infinitely long and if you destroy one module, another can take its place. That’s brilliant, really it is. Just keep it the hell away from me, mkay?

[ Hirose Fukushima Lab ] VIA [ GeekAlerts ]

CrabFu has a talent for making cute little robots out of spare servos from R/C aircraft. He also has a talent for making them really, really creepy when they move. His most recent creations are a tortoise and a fish called Flapper (watch the video and you’ll see why):

There’s no coordination on the servos; the movement of the robots comes from direct control of each servo via a remote. Oh, and the plastic bits? They’re made of some neat stuff called Shapelock, which becomes moldable if you heat it up to 150 degrees (with hot water, a heat gun, or a microwave). It hardens as soon as it cools down, and you can repeat the process. Seems like something everyone could find a use for, and you can get a free sample for, um, only $5!

Video of the turtle molesting a cat, after the jump. (Read more…)

The latest group of honorary BotJunkies are the members of the “Looks Like A Robot” photo pool on Flickr, who post pictures of things that look like robots, but aren’t. You have to be pretty spooled out on bots to see them everywhere like this… I’m way jealous.

Thanks to Flickr user wryonedwards for the above image.

[ Looks Like A Robot ] VIA [ Robots Dreams ]

One of the things I admired most when I went to Pixar (I went to Pixar!) to see the Wall-E premiere were the incredibly awesome posters on the walls advertising Buy-’N-Large robots with beautiful sixties-style illustrations by artist Eric Tan. At first I thought that they were an internal project that I’d never see again (nooo!), and then I started hoping that they’d appear in some sort of publicity capacity and I’d be able to get my hands on a set. Turns out that their availability is somewhere in the middle… You can get them, you just have to pay a ton of money. $165 each, to be precise, for a hand numbered “Limited Edition Giclee” (whatever that is) printed on archival paper with a certificate of authenticity. Yes, it’s way too much money when I’d be perfectly happy with something spat out of a midrange inkjet on poster paper.

I’m just going to have to break into Pixar and steal myself some real ones, I guess. A couple more posters, after the jump. (Read more…)

I think the first chore I ever had as a kid was feeding my fish. I think it’s symbolic, somehow, that this job has been overtaken (conceptually, anyway) by a clever little robot called FIFER. FIFER is much, much more than just a floating fish food dispenser. It propels itself around with water jets, and when it’s time to feed the fishies, it emits sound to attract them. It somehow calculates the density of the fish in the water, and feeds them the proper amount of food based on the size of the school and the water temperature. FIFER can move around on a preset path to feed different groups of fish, and when it’s empty, it’ll jet back to the side of your tank or pond and wait for a refill.

This is only a concept, and I have no idea how it’s powered or programmed, but I think it’s important to support this idea if for no other reason than fish need robots too.

VIA [ Yanko Design ]

As big of a fan as I am of robot festivals, it generally takes booze, sex, or violence to motivate me to travel to one. And Pittsburgh is not exactly at the top of my list. But Robot 250, sponsored by Carnegie Mellon University and the City of Pittsburgh, actually looks pretty cool. The festival takes place all around the Pittsburgh and includes lots of robotic art installations, many of which are interactive. The picture above is of Mower, a robotic sheep that walks around (on, um, six legs) and trims grass with a small blade inside its mouth. Mower’s head contains obstacle avoidance sensors and a GPS locator for fully autonomous grass mitigation operations. It was designed by Osman Khan, a visiting professor at CMU.

Okay, so it may not be quite as efficient as one of these (especially since it seems to be trailing an extension cord?), but it’s way cuter and it goes “baaaaa!” Yay! Check out the Robot 250 website for pics and movies of some of the other installations.

[ Robot 250 ] VIA [ Crave ]

Alas. It was only a matter of time before the final bastion of human superiority, the air hockey table, fell to the relentless progress of rec room robotics. The culprit is Nuvation Research Corporation, who programmed their FANUC robotic arm to defeat pretty much all comers at the air hockey table. Well, not so much defeat, as (at first glance) it doesn’t appear to have any offensive capabilities… Or else it’s just biding its time, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. Robots are patient and crafty like that, you know. Have a look:

See? I told you. Patient and crafty. Apparently, the robot ended up scoring three times as many goals as its human opponents, and defeated absolutely everyone. It has now been challenged to participate in a professional air hockey tournament (such things exist).

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen FANUC hardware; we wrote about them earlier this year as a pair of their arms were declared as the 2007 Robot Of The Year by Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry. While in some respects air hockey doesn’t seem like the most challenging of applications for a robotic vision system and arm (especially considering some of the other feats we’ve seen them perform), consider how fast the puck moves when you fire it at the robot as hard as you can. And if you watch the video in its entirety, you’ll even see it slip a goal in at the very end.

First ping pong, now air hockey. Yep, we’re doomed.

[ Nuvation ] VIA [ EE Times ]

Hi there. I’m back from vacation, jet lag and food poisoning and all. Luke did a bang-up job around here for the past few weeks, and I’m sure you were all so busy seeing Wall-E over and over that you hardly noticed I was gone. Best robot movie ever, right? Right. Anyway, on to business….

I saw a few of these stickers at (appropriately enough) RoboGames 2008, and desperately wanted one. Somebody must have noticed me drooling, ’cause Suicide Bots printed up another batch, and they’re now available for a mere $3 (shipped) right here.
Share and enjoy!

VIA [ Suicide Bots ]

It seems that we’re reaching the point where we can create robots that almost seems human, but there are still traits that make them unmistakably non-human. Apparently there is even a term for the creepy feeling you get when you see something like this, it’s “The Uncanny Valley.” Now that you’ve had your vocabulary lesson for the day, here are 7 of the creepiest real-life bots, most of which fall into the category listed above.

My favorite, (or least favorite, depending on how you look at it) has to be the CB2 from Professor Ishiguo at Osaka Univerity. Essentially this thing is just a 100lb robotic 2-year-old. It has over 200 tactile sensors so simulate a sense of touch and feeling. That’s 100 pounds of pure creepy right there.

VIA [ Cracked ]

After watching Wall-e last week I’ve wondered just how long it will be before we all can have robots that fetch drinks and perform other mundane tasks. While it will likely be some time before all of us can have one, such bots already exist.

The Care-O-bot 3 stands 4′3″ and has a single arm which is designed specifically to “relieve us of heavy, dirty, monotonous or irksome tasks.” Now that sounds like my kind of robotic companion. One of its primary functions is to serve drinks. Since many drinks come in varying containers, it can actually learn the shape of each bottle or can.

To teach it a newly-shaped container, simply place the bottle or can into the hand of your bot, and it will produce a 3D rendering, which will be stored in its memory. There are also sensors in each finger which allow it grip the container with the right amount of pressure, so as not to destroy your drink in the process of transporting it.

Currently the Care-O-bot 3 takes orders via a touchscreen menu, however, they currently have a test unit which can recieve audio commands as well. Man, I can’t wait until the day when these things are actually affordable.

VIA [ Gearlog ]