The Dragon Runner SUGV (small unmanned ground vehicle) is a 14.4 pound man-portable robot originally designed for the Marines. Even though the Dragon Runner was in some ways less capable than its larger and more sophisticated (and more expensive and more dangerous) cousin, being little can have lots of advantages when it comes to reconnaissance. And being carried around most of the day on some poor marine’s back.

Manufacturer Foster-Miller is making the Dragon Runner quite a bit more versatile by creating a bunch of add-ons designed to help the bot tackle different situations, like climbing stairs and even handling small explosives. Modules include a variety of tracks (including curb tracks and stair tracks to replace the standard wheels), several different sensor packages, and a multi-axis manipulator arm with a camera and grabber. All you have to do is decide what you need to complete a task, bolt on the appropriate module(s) (no specialized tools required), and let the bot do its thing.

Someone still does have to carry around all of these modules, but you have to admit, it’s better than carrying around like 5 different robots.

[ Foster-Miller ] VIA [ Danger Room ]

Let’s Make Robots is an online community that exists to help amateur roboticists like you (yes YOU) develop faster, better, funnier robots. They’re sponsoring a competition to built a robot that can write “LMR” in the most creative way possible.

Your robot can shape the letters in clay, burn it on your sisters dog with a laser, build them out of breadcrumbs.. or draw it with a pencil on a piece of paper. Anything goes, as long as the letters are clearly written, and the video shows the progress.

Winners will be featured on the Let’s Make Robots website (and here on BotJunkie, too, especially if the winner does involve lasers). Here’s an idea or two to get you started.

[ Write LMR Challenge ] VIA [ Eggshell Robotics ]

It’s obvious that Pleo needs to learn some self defense skills. Painfully obvious. The newest Pleo “personality” turns your little buddy into a “scary, rampaging, fire-breathing” monster. Not sure how they get Pleo to breathe fire via a software update, but I’m excited to find out. As with most Pleo personalities, I’m sure there are all kinds of fun little behaviors to discover, and Ugobe does encourage users to see if they can “figure out how to trigger a dramatic death sequence.” Oh, I can think of one way…

[ Pleosaurus Rex ] VIA [ DVICE ]

The best thing about this robot sculpture entitled “Little Big Man” by Nemo Gould isn’t the eight foot size, or the awesomeness, or the artistry (it’s actually the artistry, but go with me on this)… No, it’s the fact that it was built entirely out of recycled materials, including a vintage wooden radio cabinet, street lamp poles, vacuum cleaner parts, industrial food processor, antlers, chair legs, dining room table top, floor polisher, miscellaneous found pieces of hardware and scrap metal, motors, and lights. Because we’ve all got to pitch in and make sure that even the badass, killer robots are eco-friendly.

Video after the jump. (Read more…)

Now this, this is cool. Apparently, so many people commute by bicycle in Japan that finding bike parking has become a serious problem. The obvious solution is of course to construct a gigantic $67 million robotic bike parking garage that can store more than 9000 bikes and keeps them all organized through RFID. It only takes about 10 seconds from ID card swipe to bike deposit, and the service runs a mere $18 a month, which I’d be willing to pay just to watch this thing do what it does.

VIA [ Treehugger ]

Just a quick update: looks like Wrex, the robotic dog from WowWee that we got a first look at back in January at CES, is now up for grabs on Amazon.com. Here’s a video and a quick rundown on the specs:

- Three moods (happy, angry, crazy)
- Three desires (exercise, hunger, call of nature)
- Eye icons combine to show 10 different expressions
- Edge and obstacle avoidance
- Guard mode; IR sensors and speakers
- 9 motors
- Requires 4x C and 2x AA batteries (remote uses 3x AAA)
- MSRP $149.99

The Wrex website has lots more specs and detailed info, if you’re interested.

[ Amazon ]

I’ve always appreciated the mathematical nature of the game of pool… How if you know trigonometry and physics and how to use those little diamond thingies along the sides of the table, practically any shot is possible. I know none of those things and prefer to play pool with my gut (in the figurative sense), but it seems like exactly the sort of game a robot would kick ass at. Deep Green is a gantry mounted 3 DOF industrial robot, with a wrist attachment that holds a pool cue. An electric motor is used to drive the cue during normal play, while a pneumatic CANNON takes over for breaks. The brains of the robot rely on cameras mounted both above the table and on the wrist joint itself, and it’s worth noting that there’s nothing special going on with the balls or the table; the computer determines which balls are which by looking at the different patterns and colors. So yes, you could set this thing up in your basement if you wanted some competition that won’t laugh at you.

The trickiest bit about this setup is the degree of repeatability and precision, but not accuracy, that the robot is capable of. Even sub-millimeter accuracy isn’t good enough for making shots across the table. Deep Green uses adaptive visual positioning to keep itself accurate to within half a degree, which is way better than my spastic technique is good for. As far as the game itself, much like its namesake Deep Green is able to look ahead and plan for multiple contingencies much faster and more efficiently than a human can. “Deep Green currently plays at a better-than-amateur level, planning and executing difficult combination and rail shots from across the table. It has pocketed runs of four consecutive balls, and it’s only a matter of time before it can consistently run the table.”

That’s right, only a matter of time. Sends chills down your spine, doesn’t it?

[ Computer.org ] VIA [ OhGizmo ]

My new baby arrived in the mail today, a beautiful, healthy, 12.5lb Roomba 535. Ain’t she puuuurty?

If you’re asking yourself why a high-profile robotics blog editor like myself would buy what is admittedly an entry-level 500 series Roomba, I have two answers for you. One, I’m cheap (and poor). Two, being more expensive does not necessarily imply a better robot, especially when it comes to Roombas (ahem). The 535 is a HSN-branded Roomba that’s the same as a 530, except that it can use the Virtual Wall Lighthouses and wireless scheduling like its bigger and more expensive brothers. Best of all, the 535 from HSN actually costs less than the 530 from iRobot. A lot less. The 530 will cost you $330 from iRobot’s website, whereas the 535 is only $212 from HSN (with the coupon code C56574).

Get it here.

It’s been a little while since we’ve seen any new vacuum models from iRobot… After the 500 series, they haven’t done much besides adding accessories and cleaning kits, extending the warranty, extending battery life, changing the color, tacking on a big premium, and pretending they’ve got a brand new bot. They’ve just released three not much more interesting models: The 532 and 562, and the 610.

The 532 and 562 are “pet series” vacuums. What does this mean? As far as I can tell, they’re exactly the same as the Roomba 530 and 560, except that they come with an extra brush kit (a kit, not extra brushes in the bot) and a high capacity dust bin for $20 more. Oh, and I think they might say “Pet Series” on them somewhere. But are they really anything new? It does not appear so. The Roomba 532 and 562 retail for $349 and $399 respectively.

It’s pretty much the same deal on the 610… It’s a Roomba 580, except without a carrying handle and with a “heavy duty” charging base. And some other accessory-type things. The one new feature that the 610 does have is a “Max Mode” where “Roomba will clean until the battery is almost depleted then it will return to its Home Base for recharging.” I kinda thought that Roombas were supposed to work that way anyway, but what do I know? The premium for the “Pro” Roomba 610 over the 580 is about $70, at $599.

Full press release, after the jump. (Read more…)

This isn’t exactly a robot, but it is a neat little adaptive feedback system developed by the Real Time Systems Laboratory at the Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies in Pisa, Italy that takes all of those silly little tilty-ball games that you can get for your iPhone and brings them into the physical world:

A touchscreen senses the position of the ball and sends signals to x and y axis servos to keep the ball in the center of the screen. I have no idea what (software-wise) is doing the number crunching, but it’s quick enough to adapt to some fairly aggressive motions. Whether or not it (in of itself) is useful is debatable, but it sure is neat.

[ RETIS Lab ] VIA [ AI Robotics ]