A couple years ago, we posted about some cube robots from Cornell that could not only transform into different configurations, but actually replicate by picking up additional components. Festo has adopted the design, with independent cubes that can attach to each other and accept accessories to create just about any type of robot you want, with a little bit of creative programming. You can see a video of Festo’s cubes here.

Molecubes are actually an open source project that you can play with yourself, if you want… Just stick together the right mix of control cubes, battery cubes, actuator cubes, and gripper cubes, do a little programming, and you’re good to go:

Each Molecube costs about $250, and you’ll have to buy the parts and assemble them yourself. See more of what a bunch of Molecubes interfaced with a cell phone might be able to do, after the jump. (Read more…)

With the utility and successes that UAVs have had in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere, it’s no surprise that UAV weaponry, and UAVs themselves, are rapidly being upgraded to make them more powerful and more versatile. The UAV in the above picture is an Avenger, a heavy-duty upgrade of the now practically venerable Predator. The Avenger is bigger, three times faster than the Predator, can spend 20 hours at up to 60,000 feet, has a much stealthier design, and may be able to operate from an aircraft carrier.

Even as UAVs are getting fancier, their weapons are getting simpler, cheaper, and more efficient. “Spike” missiles are designed specifically for UAVs; they’re just 2 feet long and weigh a mere 2 kilograms each, and half of that is the warhead. The launcher weighs just slightly more, and each missile has a flameless, smokeless solid fuel engine that gives it a range of over 3 kilometers. Spikes use electro-optical sensors that can be locked onto a target, making the missiles fire-and-forget, or a laser targeting system can be fitted instead. Each Spike missile should cost only about $5000, making them dirt, dirt cheap… Hellfire air to ground missiles cost anywhere from 5 to 15 times as much, from what I’ve been able to dig up. Yes, Hellfire warheads are like 20 times more powerful, but sometimes (oftentimes, in anti-insurgent operations) a lot of that firepower just ends up being wasted.

VIA [ Danger Room ]

A few weeks ago, we posted about a robot octopus tentacle that was completely squishy, with no rigid parts. Boston Dynamics is getting in on the fun and is working on a SquishBot of its own; it’ll be able to transform from soft to hard and change its critical dimensions by up to a factor of 10 to stuff itself into cracks and crevices.

The Boston Dynamics team is joined by researchers from MIT who have experience developing “slug robots.” Slug robots, you say? Of course I had to scour the internets for those MIT slug robots. And here you go:

This is Robosnail, from MIT back in 2003. Snails have two primary methods of locomotion: undulating, and galloping (!). Galloping, apparently, is when “like an inchworm, the animal sticks the front of its foot to a surface (thanks to suction and friction from the mucus), and then draws the rest of its body up behind it.” Robosnail doesn’t gallop, but it does undulate: “by pushing [fluid] backwards, they can build up large pressures in the thin layer of mucus. The sum of all these pressures then pushes the snail forward.” The mucus fluid in this case is Laponite, a mixture of clay and water, and it’s viscous enough that Robotsnail can even undulate across a ceiling.

[ Boston Dynamics SquishBot ]
[ MIT Robosnail ]

Previously only possessed by promiscuous sex robots, robot crabs are now available to humans in the form of the KicCrab Walker kit from 1Sorc. It’s a fairly simple looking kit, but it does involve some careful gluing and soldering and basic programming, making it an ambitious, but still possible, first robot project. There are some optional sensors and programming, too… Basically, everything you might want experience with when it comes to big expensive robots, in a little crabby robot that only costs $80.

[ 1Sorc ] VIA [ Robots-Dreams ]

This is Hagetaka, a Mech Warfare robot. Mech Warfare is going to be one of the new events at RoboGames this year, pitting 1/24 scale 5kg robots with active weapons against each other, without direct operator observation… Each bot will have a small wireless camera, and they have to be controlled using only the view provided by that camera. Full autonomy is also allowed, but my guess is that we won’t see any of those this year, although I certainly hope I’m wrong.

The Mech Warfare event will consist of two separate classes. The first class, of which Hagetaka is a member, uses only airsoft/nerf type weapons. You get points for hitting targets on the enemy mech, but the object is to not do any actual damage. The second class is the hardcore class. Hardcore mechs are allowed to use just about anything, including CO2 powered rifles, micro class rockets, flamethrowers, and of course hand-to-hand weapons. In this class, physical damage IS the objective. It’s going to be very exciting.

Hagetaka is built around a custom aluminum chassis, and its 7 DoF legs use a total of 14 RX-64 servos. You don’t have to know much about servos to know that at nearly $300 each, these servos are extraordinarily fast and powerful. Hagetaka sports dual full-auto airsoft guns, plus WiFi video. We’re certainly looking forward to video of this mech in action, and then seeing it personally beat the crap out of lesser mechs at RoboGames this year.

[ Mech Warfare ]
[ Hagetaka: A Bipedal Combat Robot ]

Thanks Andrew!

It’s 11 meters long. It weighs 15 tons. It’s based on a rhinoceros beetle, and it’s from Japan. It supports itself on wheels, but it does use its legs to push it along. The best news is that it carries passengers inside its shell, meaning that you can get a firsthand view when this thing goes crazy and attempts to destroy Tokyo before getting stepped on by Godzilla.

[ AltJapan ] VIA [ JapanProbe ]

Shirt.woot.com has this cute t-shirt for sale, today (Saturday) only, for a mere $10 with free shipping. Another robot shirt to add to your collection, for cheap.

[ shirt.woot ]

As opposed to, all those other robots who don’t work out and get flabby. Just look what happened to C-3PO:

Don’t forget to catch the other two Bots With Stuff from this week over on The Shoebox Blog, including a robot with a glowing torso, and a robot with some hard earned money.

[ Bots With Stuff ]
[ Fat C-3PO ]

Why the heck am I suck here in California when there are robots frolicking on a fabulous beach in Thailand?

I need a vacation.

And a big quadruped robot.

[ Boston Dynamics ]

Here’s something old but cool that I ran across… These are a series of robots called Sprawl robots, from Stanford back between 2001ish and 2004ish. Sprawl robots were designed to test out hybrid foot/leg designs, and they utilized a hexapod configuration and pneumatic toes that made them deceptively speedy little buggers. After the pneumatic version came iSprawl, where the “i” THANK GOD FOR ONCE ACTUALLY STANDS FOR SOMETHING and is not just a prefix that got tossed on there because Apple does it and that makes it cool. It stands for independent! iSprawl is untethered and runs on batteries and makes for a pretty badass little remote control hexapod:

If you’re wondering where this project ended up going, remember these bots and these bots? Yep, Sprawl robots are their distant ancestors. It’s robot evolution in action.

[ Sprawl ]
[ iSprawl ]