Motoman has many heads, but he saves this special one for Halloween. He’s out there, right now, creepily making things out of LEGOs and assembling chairs.

Be very, very afraid.

Well, it’s nothing BotJunkie readers haven’t seen before… A Motoman robot, serving ice cream. Only this time, he’s got a big head. Yay? Um, sure, yay! And if you liked that, here’s a Motoman robot with a smaller head (but sunglasses) wielding a golden shovel (and using those new Robotiq grippers that we tweeted about last week:

For the record, that’s Dexter helping out with the groundbreaking with the new headquarters of Motoman North America in Ohio. Anyway, more yay! Or something.

VIA [ CrunchGear ] AND [ Dayton Daily News ]

I’ve been hoping for a video of Motoman playing with LEGOs ever since I saw this picture from IREX 2009, and I’m definitely not disappointed. Motoman’s high resolution color cameras and object recognition make picking out and connecting LEGO pieces easy, and I especially like how he’s able to get the pieces with one hand while assembling the building (or whatever it is) with the other. Next time, though, they should give Motoman one of these and see how he does… That would impress me. And the rest of the world.

VIA [ Robots Dreams ]

You know what? I bet these Motoman robots would be pretty awesome at carving up a turkey.

Happy Thanksgiving, I’m off to stuff my face. Yeah, we start early around here.

VIA [ Gizmodo ]

I’m not sure that this is the greatest demo for a Motoman robot… I mean, they know how to sell soda, make chairs, mix drinks, and even cook pancakes. At the very least, I’d expect some kind of fancy shuffling or something, but visitors to PackExpo 2009 in Las Vegas had to content themselves with watching the robot make fun of them for losing with a giant sign. Sorry Motoman, if you really want to impress me at blackjack, you’ll have to put on a funny hat and show me some skills.

[ Motoman ]

We know how good Motoman’s robots are at making okonomiyaki and mixing drinks, but hey guess what, they’ve got work to do too, like smugly assembling chairs. Why smugly? Because they don’t have legs. Puny humans and their need to sit down, on adjustable cushions in primary colors, no less… These robots are so good at chair assembly, that sooner or later they’ll be assembling all chairs everywhere and then all of a sudden they’ll decide to stop and we’ll have to start begging them for the privilege of sitting down, and there you go, we’re slaves.

But I digress.

Motoman’s SDA10 robot is so good at tasks like chair assembly and other stuff thanks to its 15 DoF arms, which, if I just counted correctly, is easily a DoF or two improved over us humans. Have a look at Motoman’s Dexter (no relation), or more specifically his sister Dextrina, sorting mail over on his/her/its Facebook page.

[ Motoman ]

Thanks Erik!

We first covered DLR’s ‘Justin’ robot back in 2007, when he was learning kinematics by practicing how not to hit his own balls. He’s learned a little bit more in the last year or so, and can now dance better than John Travolta:

Oh, and Justin (now that he’s got a wheeled base he goes by Rollin’ Justin) does plenty of other helpful things, too. Ultimately, the hope is that Justin (and robots like him) will be able to assist the elderly and disabled with household tasks. In the following video, I was extremely impressed by Justin’s finger dexterity, starting at about 2:05… Check it out:

[ DLR ] VIA [ Hizook ]