Although I don’t want to believe that the world will have turned into some sort of battleground by 2045, I DO want to believe that we’ll have giant robots beating the nuts out of each other by then. This sweet video was created by Vincent Chai, who did the whole thing with off the shelf software like Maya and Photoshop. Not bad, right?

You can watch a high-def version of the movie on Vincent’s website; it takes about a week to download but it sure is purty.

[ World War ] VIA [ DVICE ]

Yesterday commuters arrived at Lime Street to find a gigantic mechanical spider clinging to a derelict building next to the station. A group of French specialist researchers announced that they had been observing the creature, apparently made of steel and wood and a thousand times the size of anything in nature, for weeks. It appears to be female, around 13m tall, and has been dubbed ‘La Princesse’ by the team. The scientists believe the creature may be about to hibernate, and are attempting to prevent it falling into an inert state, as they are concerned at the potentially catastrophic results of the spider laying up to 1000 eggs. Scientists have therefore removed the spider from the building and taken it to a research base established at the ACC, at Albert Dock in Liverpool. On Friday 5th September it is expected that they will attempt to wake it, under controlled conditions, at 11:30am.

Be afraid. Be very, very afraid. More after the jump. (Read more…)

In what could be, but hopefully isn’t, a once in a lifetime opportunity, TechShop in San Francisco is offering a comprehensive course in combat robot construction. When I say comprehensive, I mean you can walk in the door not knowing a speed controller from a servo, and walk out limping because your brand new fully armed and operational 60 pound combat robot decided that you weren’t worthy to wield its multi-spectrum radio transmitter and politely ran over your foot. Of course, that’s not going to happen, because the course also includes expert instruction. And a complementary kill switch. Here’s the skinny:

In this 2-day full-weekend class, you and your team member will learn to create a 60-pound fighting robot platform with help from the world’s best combat robot builders.

This Workshop Covers:

* Basic Robot Construction
* Weapon Construction
* Defense Measures
* Gear Ratios
* Motor Speed Controllers
* Driving Tips
* Materials Science (Cost-to-Strength Trade-Offs)

You Will Also Participate in Crash-Courses Covering:

* Mills, Lathes and Drill Presses
* Basic Hand Tools
* Taps and Dies
* Welding

You’ll build and take home your own base for a 60-lb combat robot, ready for you to attach weapons and armor and find an opponent! The workshop runs for two eight-hour days and even includes lunch and snacks.

The $595 class fee includes (2)eight-hour sessions, lunch, and snacks.

The $995 materials fee includes:

* 2 Dewalt High-Torque Motors
* 2 Matched Gearboxes
* 2 Motor Speed Controllers
* 2 Battery Packs
* 1 Master Kill Switch
* 1 Multi-Spectrum Radio Transmitter
* 1 Multi-Channel Radio Receiver
* Polycarbonate and Fasteners for Your Robot Base

Flamethrower sold separately.

Instructors include a suite of veteran combat robot experts, and this guy. If I could spare the dosh, I’d totally be there… It looks like it’s gonna be awesome.

[ TechShop ]

Not that I know anything about real estate, but I’m guessing that one of the reasons that houses are so expensive is that they require a lot of hands-on work by a bunch of skilled (and expensive) humans. And generally, houses are complicated, especially if you want one with all sorts of exciting peaks and angles and crevices and secret passages. If you’re just looking for something basic and cheap with some walls and a roof to keep vampire bats from sucking your blood while you sleep, Contour Crafting is developing a robot that’s able to “print” three dimensional structures, using what is essentially inkjet technology, except on a larger scale and with concrete:

The little guy at the end of the video is designed to ride on top of the structure he’s building, reducing the need for any sort of infrastructure at all, which is pretty cool if you ask me. Ultimately, the robots will even be capable of installing plumbing and electrical systems as part of the process, and will be able to build any type of self-supporting structure than can be modeled in a CAD program. Caterpillar has kicked in a bunch of money toward developing this technology, and you can understand why:

The overarching vision… is to develop the science and engineering needed for rapid automated fabrication of objects of various size up to mega-scale structures such as boats, industrial objects, public art and whole building structures.

The grand challenge for CRAFT is building a custom-designed house in a day while drastically reducing the costs, injuries, waste and environmental impact associated with traditional construction… whether it be to provide affordable housing… extraterrestrial buildings constructed from in situ materials… [or] curved organic designs rather than straight surfaces.

That’s right, extraterrestrial. NASA is apparently interested in using robots like this to build structures on the moon and on Mars without the astronauts having to lift a finger, or even having to be there, for that matter. But in the short term, I’ll happily settle for a customized house at a projected 1/5 the cost of a conventionally built structure. Although, if the robot had its way, I’d probably end up with 5,000 outlets and no bathroom.

[ Contour Crafting ] VIA [ The Register ]

It’s finally September. FINALLY. As of now, I am effectively unemployed, and can spend every waking moment living, breathing, and getting probed by robots. I’m SO EXCITED. In addition to resuming a normal, reliable (!), practically every day posting schedule, we’ve got some pretty awesome events coming up, including RoboDevelopment, CES, and later this month, Arse Elektronika (potentially excitingly NSFW).

Oh, and I’m definitely going to try and put together a contest or two. Free robot stuff = good, right?

We’re back, baby. With a vengance. So stay tuned…

This is Jeppe, a prototype communication robot from Nokia, that looks to be a sort of Ikea-ized version of the WowWee Rovio or the iRobot ConnectR. It’s not a new idea, but it is Finnish:

Yeah, that would totally match my Scandinavian Modern bedroom set.

[ Nokia Smart Spaces Lab ] VIA [ Core77 ]

On a personal note, I apologize again for the lack up updates. You can expect me to be back on a normal, nay, enhanced (!) posting schedule in a week or so. By then, either all of the grapes in California will have been harvested, or I’ll be dead. Meantime, if there’s anyone out there who is qualified to pilot a Cessna T182 and knows about multispectral remote sensing and GIS, I’d like to have a word with you…

Been unimpressed with the forthrightness of the present administration? You’re not the only one. Fortunately, the Pentagon has seen fit to replace its meatsack PR people with a “mobile press engagement unit:”

Unfortunately, according to The Onion, the next step for the spokesdrone is most likely going to be the presidency itself.

[ The Onion ] VIA [ GoRobotics ]

Yeah, uh, no idea what’s going on here, but it’s pretty freakin’ cool in a WTF sort of way. Can someone who speaks Japanese tell me how much I have to pay to get in there with my boffer sword and slice me up some robot ass arm?

VIA [ Geekologie ]

Last year, we wrote about some R/C helicopters from Georgia Tech that were able to land on 60 degree slopes under computer control. Looks like Stanford has its own autonomous helicopter program, and they’ve been able to teach their helicopters to do all sorts of crazy stuff without anyone at the controls. The acrobatics in the following video are not preprogrammed maneuvers… A human pilot first performs some sample sequences, and a computer “watches” the trajectory of the helicopter and figures out how to duplicate (and improve upon) them. After the autonomous acrobatics in the video, you’ll see a set of six sample trajectories in color (flown by a puny human pilot) as well as a seventh trajectory (in white) which is what the computer calculates to be the ideal representation of the maneuvers:

There’s a ton of fancy math involved (read the paper here), but the upshot is that a computer can learn how to fly a helicopter better than an expert, after simply watching the expert fly for a while. According to Stanford, “in all cases, the autonomous helicopter’s performance exceeds that of our expert helicopter pilot’s demonstrations.” In of itself, this is not surprising, but the key here is that nobody has to program the robot to do anything specific. Programming robots to do what you want them to do is one of the biggest obstacles to practical robotics since it generally takes a substantial amount of knowledge and skill. Software like this, which allows robots to watch us and teach themselves, has a great deal of promise. And not just for helicopters… It’s also good for making omelettes.

You can see more vids on the Stanford Autonomous Helicopter Project’s YouTube channel.

[ Stanford Autonomous Helicopter ] VIA [ AI Robotics ]

So, after watching this video (by the German band Wir sind Helden), here’s my question to anyone out there who owns a Pleo, Paro, Roomba, etc… What do you do (or what will you do) when your robot breaks or becomes obsolete or outdated? Will you unceremoniously toss it in the trash recycling? Keep it around in a place of honor?

Or…

Harvest its parts to make a zombie frankenbot?

Yeah, I thought so.

VIA [ Eggshell Robotics ]