We like snakebots around here. We really really really really do. Anna Konda has to be one of my favorites, though, and not just because of her hilaaaaarious name. No, I like Anna because she has an integrated super soaker. Check it out toward the end of this vid:

Anna Konda is 3 meters long, weighs 75 kilos, and has 20 joints, each with 33 degrees of freedom. The robot doesn’t just shoot water, it’s actually powered by water. Each joint module contains hydraulic valves and cylinders capable of handling up to 1450 psi of water pressure. The disadvantage of water power is that the robot isn’t likely too be able to operate untethered, but that’s okay, since Anna Konda is designed to be a fire fighting robot. The high water pressure that powers the robot makes it very strong, and also serves to keep it cool while winding its way through flaming danger zones like tunnel fires, burning buildings, or near explosives or hazardous chemicals. And before you ask, yes… You can attach it to your garden hose and it’ll wiggle around and water your plants for you.

SINTEF (somehow an acronym for The Foundation for Scientific and Industrial Research, it’s in Norway) is currently looking for collaborating partners to develop a complete system.

[ SINTEF ]

Getting robots to throw stuff like bowling balls and basketballs isn’t a walk in the park, but it’s much easier than the other end of things: getting robots to catch. Catching a moving object is (depending how sporty you are) either deceptively simple or deceptively difficult… You’re moving, the object is moving, and your brain has to figure out where the twain shall meet. Robots are good at math, but you need a lot of computer power and a gaggle of high speed cameras to figure out exactly where something like a ball is going to land.

So how do humans, who generally suck at doing complex math and playing sports at the same time, get it to work so well? For that matter, how do animals pull it off? Turns out that both humans and animals have just come up with a clever generic strategy that gets the job done, and Michael McBeath (an engineering professor at ASU) and Thomas Sugar (a psychology professor) have figured it out. Read how it works, after the jump. (Read more…)

Remember when we wrote about Murata Boy? Yeah, I remember too, but I can’t seem to find the post. Grr. On one entirely possible off-chance that I’m totally making up the fact that I ever wrote about the little guy, he’s a bicyclist bot:

Murata Boy has a gyro in his chest that keeps him upright while riding a bike, turning a bike, stopped dead on a bike, detecting obstacles on a bike, and crossing a balance beam on a bike.

Murata Boy’s gyro stabilizes him on one axis (the sideways one, or roll). The bicycle itself keeps a handle on pitch and yaw thanks to a front and back wheel and frictiony tires. Murata Girl (a “shy but lively” kindergartner) has two gyros to keep her stabilized in both roll and pitch, allowing her to ride a unicycle:

Murata Girl is controlled via Bluetooth, and also has the ability to avoid obstacles. I can’t tell whether she’s able to turn; I suppose it depends on how you turn a unicycle: do you roll, or do you yaw? All the pro unicyclists who read this blog (and I’m sure there’s a whole bevvy of you) can feel free to weigh in on that.

[ Murata (Translated) ] VIA [ Engadget ]

Arse Elektronika, which ended on Sunday, was a blast. Very sexy/technolog-y/society-y. This year emphasized science fiction and social issues, and while some absolutely fascinating topics were under discussion, there weren’t any robot performances quite on par with last year’s NSFW finale. Or much in the way of robot performances at all (depending, of course, on your definition of robot). Since we’d like to keep things more or less PG-13 around here (after last year, anyway) I’d recommend heading on over to Wired for a probably NSFW captioned slide show, that explains what that thing is in the picture above. Scott over at Laughing Squid also took a bunch of nice pictures.

If you’re more interested in the content of the conference, there are free MP3s of the talks available for download here. Needless to say, they’re NSFW. I’d highly recommend listening to the day 2 panel discussion on The Erotic of the Machine (MP3).

It’s sex, it’s robots, it’s the future. Or it will be sooner or later, anyway… So it’s a good thing we’re all getting so comfortable with it here in the present. ::cough::

[ Arse Elektronika ]

Here’s an excellent way to waste a few minutes of your Friday: take remote control of an unmanned ground vehicle in Australia. BP has set up a miniature course shaped like the fine country/continent of OZ, and stuck five little Surveyor robots (which you can get for yourself here) inside. The robots are controlled wirelessly over the internet by you via a Flash interface, and stream video from front-mounted cameras to let you see where you’re going. You only get 4 minutes at a time, and the bots only seem to operate between 9am and 9pm GMT+10 (whenever the heck that is), but so far I’ve always been first in line and have never had to wait my turn. Codes are hidden around the course that you can use to give yourself more drivin’ time, but I was entertained enough just exploring the city and outback areas and trying to get my little robot to drive over a bridge.

Oh yeah, and the bots are 100% solar powered, go BP!

[ BP Explorer ] VIA [ Trossen Robotics ]

This neat little flash game called Light Bot does a pretty good job of teaching basic programming without making it seem like you’re learning anything. Give it a try. If you like this game but are a little bit intimidated by DIY or hobby robotics, relax, it’s practically the same thing. In some cases, it’s exactly the same thing… Just queue up a sequence of movements (or functions, which are just a bunch of movements in a row stuffed together) in a graphical environment and click go. Yep, that’s really all there is to it, on a basic level, so get yourself a real robot and give it a try.

[ Light Bot ] VIA [ Eggshell Robotics ]

Mmm, there’s nothing tastier than an ice cold glass of milk, especially if it’s been sucked out of a cow by the ice cold metal hand of a robot. The Lely Astronaut robotic milking system is designed to reduce the stress of both farmers and cows by milking the cows completely automatically whenever they feel like being milked. They just wander up, walk into the housing, and the robot does its job. Radio collars identify each individual cow, and a laser guided robotic arm gently attaches milking cups to the cow’s udders.

Cows typically adjust to the robotic system in 2 or 3 days. Since they can visit the milking robot whenever they want to (as opposed to only once a day), milk production increases by up to 20%, since more frequent milking better emulates how cows naturally deliver milk. Dairy farmers typically adjust to the robotic system the next morning, since they don’t even have to get out of bed… Especially now that cows can herd themselves, too.

[ Lely ]

If you’re in the San Francisco area and like robots and sex, the Arse Elektronika conference (nominally about sex, science fiction, and technology) kicks off tonight with a party and awards ceremony. BotJunkie was in the audience last year, and we came back with some extraordinarily interesting perspectives on the future of robot/human interaction, as well as some other stuff that’s extraordinarily NSFW. This year I’m looking forward to a lot of column A with a little bit of column B for good measure. Don’t worry, though… I’ll do my best to keep things interesting, informative, civilized, and tasteful. Here’s a general rundown of what we’ll be looking forward to:

Taking up where the successful conference in autumn 2007 left off, this year’s Arse Elektronika stands under the motto “future” — and the ways in which the present sees itself reflected in it. Maintaining a broadened perspective on technical development and technology while also putting special emphasis on its social implementation, this year’s conference focuses on Science and Social Fiction.

The genre of the “fantastic” is especially well suited to the investigation of the touchy area of sexuality and pornography: actual and assumed developments are frequently depicted positively and approvingly, but just as often with dystopian admonishment. Here the classic, and continuingly valid, themes of modernism represent a clear link between the two aspects: questions of science, research and technologization are of interest, as is the complex surrounding urbanism, artificiality and control (or the loss of control). Depictions of the future, irregardless of the form they take, always address the present as well. Imaginations of the fantastic and the nightmarish give rise to a thematic overlapping of the exotic, the alienating and, of course, the pornographic/sexual as well.

The conference schedule can be found here.

[ Arse Elektronika 2008 ]

Disappointed that your girlfriend isn’t a robot? Yeah, we’ve all been there. After years of trial and error I’ve discovered that while it’s probably not a good idea to ask her to cover herself in silver body paint and call you “01101001101″ (trust me on that one), you just might be able to get her to put on this undeniably classy set of robot underwear. It’s got a bunch of cute little robots on it, along with hearts and lightning bolts (but you can just ignore those). The bra will run you $10, the thong $6, and boyshorts in the same pattern are also $6.

VIA [ Shiny Shiny ]

Hmm. I wonder if it really is this easy…

VIA [ Danger Room ]