This is neither the first, nor the best, robot dancing video we’ve seen, but what I like about this one is how unapologetically not made for dancing this robot is. It’s an industrial robot, in an industrial setting, and you get the sense that it might be neglecting its duty as boxes pass it by in the background while it’s groovin’ out.

So why is it dancing, you ask? Because it’s a robot, and if you have access to a robot, it’s basically impossible to keep yourself from finding cool (albeit non-productive) stuff to do with it.

VIA [ YouTube ]

To kick off Hannover Messe (an industrial fair in Germany) last month, ABB taught one of their industrial robots to beat on stuff. Musically.

The robot percussionist was accompanied in its performance by a “real” cellist who commented “the industrial robot is a congenial partner and dominated his instruments with some virtuosity”.

The robot wasn’t an autonomous musician, at least not entirely… It looked like the guy controlling the robot was telling it what sequence of pre-programmed movements to make. If I’m not mistaken, he’s doing some stuff with a Tenori-On also, but I have no idea what… Maybe mixing background loops on the fly?

I love it when companies who build serious industrial robots take a step back and say, “let’s just do something cool,” because robots are cool, and they’re good for much much more than just totally taking over from us humans.

[ ABB ]

Thanks Maanasi!

Last February we posted some video of a couple ABB industrial robots showing off some Fanta Can avoidance maneuvers. Level two of the challenge adds a third robot and drops the tolerance down to 1mm. That’s, like, really small. And the robots are moving, like, really fast. What ABB is demonstrating here isn’t the repeatability, or even the tolerance (which is, in fact, tighter than 1mm). Rather, it’s the fact that you can program a complex path into the robot and then bump up the speed to something inhuman without any part of the system flinching. Neat stuff.

Also, what the hell is “Exotic Thrill” flavored Fanta?

[ ABB Robotics ]

Those ABB Flexpicker robots are at it again, this time stacking pre-made pancakes, a type of food that I didn’t know existed until now. I mean, there are pancake machines, and you can get pancakes in a can, but can you really buy a package of pancakes that you just have to microwave or something? Wow, it really is the future.

But I digress.

ABB points out a new buffering feature that lets the robot adapt to inconsistent pancake flow by keeping a reserve, which is nifty to watch. And the speed is, as always, impressive. 400 pancakes per minute… That’s what, just under 7 pancakes per second? It exhausts me just watching this video. According to the pancake company, the robots have “enabled us to absorb a number of overheads.” Great, that’s just great. They’ll be coming after the rest of us, next.

[ ABB Robotics ]