The Bow Shooting Mechanized Boy Robot is a fully functional archer, who never misses his target. Well, as long as the target remains stationary. He pulls an arrow from the his quiver beside him, then loads the bow, aims and fires. Sure, it’s not maniacal robot carnage or anything, but the clockwork art of this mechanical device is to be appreciated. It’s made in the traditional style of traditional Japanese Karakuri puppets, which are mechanized dolls that date back to at least the 17th century.

Simple and elegant, it consists of the pedestal, the boy, and a hanging target. The craftsmanship outside is matched within, by the complexity of the gear assemblies. The English instructions make for quite a read, with over 50 pages, detailing everything. You get almost everything you need in the kit: tools, gears and parts. It also comes completely assembled for $300. Check out the video after the jump.
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When you hear about a robot that makes food or drink of any kind, your first thought is that the end result must be good, right? Otherwise, why bother using a robot at all? Surely a robot must be capable of making a great cup of joe. I’m sure that’s the case. However, this robot from the DEXMART project, known as Justine, while being agile enough and precise enough to make coffee, only makes the instant variety. I guess they figure it’s a start, and maybe the bot will go on to better things one day, but I think I’ll pass.

Naples University Professor Bruno Siciliano heads the project. He believes that useful, two-armed robots are only now being realized. After all, one-armed robots work a variety of jobs, like assembling cars. He thinks that the era of the two-armed robot is at hand and that they will revolutionize our lives in less that 15 years.

[DEXMART] VIA [Dvice]

Do you fit into one of the following categories:

-Girls who are reaching or having reached puberty, hope to improve the growth of breast.

-Women, who are under pressure, want to relax themselves.

-Women who want to improve the quality of their sex activities.

-Women who want to have pretty breasts.

If so, the Breast Massage Robot, designed by Wei Wang and the Beijing BUBBY Robot Technologies CO., LTD, may be for you. Details are alarmingly sketchy about this amazing new technology, but according to the website soliciting corporate investment, “the massage is performed by both head and poles, during the massage the former circles as well as the latter draws and drops.” Ah, I get it now. More than 1,000 units per day are projected to sell in North America alone, and the designers say their goal is nothing less than “to make the BMR the hottest high-tech product worldwide.” Best of luck, guys, best of luck.

[ BUBBY BMR ] VIA [ DRB ]

Believe it or not, some of the toys that get DARPA money do make it into general use in the armed services. The Crusher UGV has just graduated from its birthplace at Carnegie Mellon, and is entering the army, albeit a stateside research arm thereof. From the video, it looks like it’s been updated with a new sensor suite, probably to improve its autonomous obstacle avoidance capabilities… It looks a lot like some of the sensors on DARPA Grand/Urban Challenge vehicles, for good reason: they work, especially when designed by CMU. This version of Crusher is designed to navigate itself between GPS waypoints without human intervention, although fully autonomous deployment is still a ways away. Hopefully, passenger cars will be categorized as obstacles to avoid, rather than crush, by then. Video after the jump. (Read more…)

I’m not entirely sure what Pleo was doing at the Game Developer’s Conference taking place in San Francisco this week, but I’m not complaining. I’m somewhat ashamed to admit that despite having written about robots since last August, I’ve never actually seen a Pleo in person until today. And he’s so cute that I want to stab my eyes out with his tail.

If you’re not familiar with Pleo, he’s a little robotic dinosaur with all kinds of artificial intelligence. He has cameras, touch sensors, and motion sensors all over his rubbery little body, and his personality (which he has in spades) actually evolves over time depending on how you treat him. He’s $350, available online. After the jump, check out another video of the typical Pleo reaction, which is generally some variation on OMG CUTE I WANT ONE!!! (Read more…)

As with most people, sometimes I remember my dreams, and sometimes I don’t. I’ve always wished for some way to record what was going on… Especially for those few occasions where during a dream, I realized I was dreaming, and took full (full) advantage of it. Fernando Orellana and Brendan Burns have created a robotic work of art that uses brain activity recorded during REM sleep to program the movements of a robot. Unfortunately, the programming is rather subjective in that there’s no way to directly correlate dream actions with what shows up on an EEG:

The use of the EEG data is a bit more complex. Running it through a machine learning algorithm, we identified several patterns from a sample of the data set (both REM and non-REM events). We then associated preprogrammed robot behaviors to these patterns. Using the patterns like filters, we process the entire data set, letting the robot act out each behavior as each pattern surfaces in the signal. Periods of high activity (REM) where associated with dynamic behaviors (flying, scared, etc.) and low activity with more subtle ones (gesturing, looking around, etc.). The “behaviors” the robot demonstrates are some of the actions I might do (along with everyone else) in a dream.

I imagine that with a bit of time and calibration, and perhaps some additional measurements of muscle movement, there could be some way to differentiate between (say) dream running and dream flying. Still, it’s an intriguing concept, and the results are interesting to watch:

[ We Make Money Not Art ] VIA [ Gearfuse ]

Okay, so technically this an R/C vehicle and not really a robot… But then, the PackBot isn’t really a robot either, by that definition. Defining what a robot is can be a tricky business. You know what, though, this thing is damn cool and it’s robot-y enough that I’m posting about it anyway:

Not a bad amount of traction for a 3.5kg vehicle powered by a steam engine… If iRobot were to adopt this tech for their PackBots, they could run forever on little more than wood and water, but I doubt they’d react as well to being tossed through windows. The treads and chassis are from a 1/35 scale Leopard battle tank model, and the powerplant is a 45psi Regner model marine steam engine. Aside from that stuff and the R/C equipment, it was all hand built, a process which you can read about (a little bit, at least) on the Questioneering blog. Lots more pics here.

[ Questioneering ] VIA [ Uberreview ]

Robot cooks are shaping up to be one of the next big things when it comes to automation. If you think about it, robots should be ideally suited to cooking, since it’s basically a construction project involving a set of components being assembled according to an instruction manual. This robot makes octopus balls entirely from scratch, hand-turning them to make sure they cook evenly, and adding sauce and seasonings after moving the finished ones over to a serving tray. I’ll confess to not being exactly sure what an octopus ball is, but what the heck, if a robot cooked it for me, I’d totally eat it.

VIA [ Technovelgy ]

Speaking of Keepon, IO9 got themselves an interview with Daniel H. Wilson, author of How To Survive a Robot Uprising and most recently How To Build a Robot Army. The theme of the interview was a practical one: when the aliens come, what do we do? Here’s an excerpt:

In your new book, you offer a lot of helpful, concrete advice on building a robot army to defeat alien invaders. But shouldn’t we be forming armies of bioengineered defenders too? What would be your first pick for a life form we should reengineer for alien defense?

Bugs. Just like robots, bugs are covered in armored exoskeletons, impervious to having their legs ripped off, and I’m pretty sure that they haven’t got any feelings. How to Build a Robot Army doesn’t pay much attention to genetic modification, but it puts a whole lot of thought into how to upgrade biological creatures with robotic modifications. Here’s a fun fact to know and tell: Scientists believe that by implanting a micro-electromechanical system (MEMS) at the pupa stage, insects will integrate the devices seamlessly into their bodies as they grow - like a tree growing through a fence. Hmmm… Let’s take a peek into my Bag of the Future. What’s that? It’s full of robot scorpions!

Click through to read the full interview.

[ IO9 Interviews Daniel Wilson ]

I’m gonna try real hard to pretend that this isn’t a Keepon videospam post (not that there’s anything wrong with that), and talk a little bit about what everyone’s favorite little dancin’ squishbot is actually designed to do, since he’s more than just a pretty face. Really, he is. Keepon was created to exchange emotions with, and provide attention to, small children in a simple and comprehensive way. Although he’s programmed to track faces and dance autonomously, when working with children, Keepon is generally controlled by a remote operator. He’s capable of two primary actions: “attentive” (Keepon is “looking” at something specific) and “emotive” (rocking back and forth or bobbing up and down). The simplicity of these actions means that Keepon is very, very easy to understand, relate to, and get along with.

Keepon works at a day-care center for children with developmental delays and/or disorders. Despite his simplicity, he seems to be quite effective as an interactive diagnostic tool:

The children showed various actions in relation to Keepon. Sometimes they showed vivid facial expressions that even their parents had not seen before. They also showed prosocial actions like trying to feed Keepon, putting on a cap on its head, and kissing it. As a whole, the observations suggest the following points:

-The children with difficulty in inter-personal communication (especially, those with PDD and autism), were able to approach to Keepon with curiosity and security. This is probably because Keepon seemed to be neither a complex human nor a simple toy.

-Some of the children extended their diadic interaction with Keepon into triadic inter-personal interaction, where they tried to share the pleasure and surprise they found in Keepon with others, like their caregivers and nursing staff.

-Each child showed a different style of interaction that changed over time, which would tell us a “story” of his or her personality and developmental profile, which would not be thoroughly explained by a diagnostic label like “autism”.

Not bad for a little yellow puffball, right? More Keepon vids (the ones you really want to see) after the jump. (Read more…)