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Robot Tea
Infuser - $9.95
Do you like your tea with a dash of retro technology? Check out this cute Robot Tea Infuser from the NeatoShop! The stainless steel tea infuser comes with its own drip tray, so you can keep your table neat and tidy. Its adjustable arms let the infuser fit any size tea cups or mugs.
Link | See more neat Coffee & Tea stuff from our Shop
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Hear the future of synth music now, from this emerging powerhouse duo Robotic Drummer and HP Scanner! Little Drummer Boy comes alive with the office friendly sounds of Christmas, and makes you wonder “what are these two going to play next?”
I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what other tunes they’ll be programmed to perform, but for now enjoy the song that’s sure to become the new Robanukah anthem!
–via Geekologie
It may look like a simple piece of plastic, but this robot has the moves! In fact, that’s what it is for -to test out news ways for a robot to move. Developed by researchers at Harvard University, this soft robot was inspired by the movements of squid and worms. Link -via Cosmic Variance
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This whimsical store appeared in downtown Pittsburgh on November 18th. The sign on the door says the owners are on vacation, but that just covers the fact that this is an art installation by Toby Atticus Fraley.
The installation is part of the “Pop Up Pittsburgh” project designed to brighten vacant storefronts in downtown Pittsburgh. Along with a warmly lit inviting interior there are also a couple of animatronic robots giving some movement and interest to the installation. It will have a year long run at 210 6th St.
See lots more pictures and read about the fictional repair shop’s services at the “business” website. Link -Thanks, Toby!
PETMAN is a robot from Boston Dynamics (the company that brought us BigDog). PETMAN was designed to test protective clothing for the U.S. military. Despite not having a real head, he can pretty much move like a real man. Link -via Metafilter
Previously: PETMAN Prototype
PS: Rob at the What Is It? blog suggested an appropriate soundtrack for this video.
Steampunk Robot 3D Magnets Set of 4 – $49.95
First it was Zombies and now it is Steampunk Robots! Will the invasion of fantastic Neatorama exclusive products ever end? We certainly hope not!
Behold the awesome Steampunk Robot 3D Magnet Set of 4 from the NeatoShop. This amazing set comes with:
Mix them up to create your own 3D steampunk robot fridge magnets!
The 3D Zombie Magnets is compatible with this set. You can combine them to create your own frightening Zombie / Steampunk Robot creature.
Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more Magnetic fun!
Comments Off Boston Dynamics made a music video featuring their BigDog Robotic Mule. You’ll see clips of various stages of the robot’s development and testing set to the tune of “Let the Big Dog Eat” performed by Alex Taylor. -via Geeks Are Sexy
Previously at Neatorama: BigDog in 2006.
Still funnier: The BigDog beta version.
By 2012, the number of robots worldwide could equal the number of people in the state of Illinois. The linked infograph has a list of statistics on how robots are taking over the workforce (on their way to taking over the world.)
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Redditor reyvehn told the story of the day he worked a beer stand at an air show, and someone from the military contingent sent a TALON Naval EOD bot up to the stand with a $5 bill in its claw. So he replaced the money with a Bud Lite and snapped a picture. And of course, someone had to say it:
…and then the bartender says, “We don’t get many robots in here,” and the robot says, “at five bucks a beer, I’m not surprised!”
If you’re upset about the state of education in America, here’s a ray of hope in the form of a robotic hand. Created by Colorado high school student Easton LaChappelle, this mechanical marvel was ingeniously printed out of paper and fiberglass, and is controlled remotely by Easton via glove control, which allows the young inventor the privilege of congratulating himself. Watch the hand in action over at PopSci.
Link -image by Easton LaChappelle
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With the elderly population of Japan increasing rapidly there is a great need for adequate nursing care. That’s why companies there have been developing robots to help care for older patients. The new Riba II robot resembles a giant teddy bear.
Developed by the Riken research center and Tokai Rubber Industries, the new Robot for Interactive Body Assistance can now lift patients weighing up to 176 pounds, better than its previous load limit of 134 pounds.
It can also bend down and deposit or pick up patients on the floor. This is useful in Japan, where people often sleep on futon floor bedding or relax on floor tatami mats.
Riken says caregivers on average lift patients from floor bedding into wheelchairs 40 times a day, adding that the elderly nursing-care population in Japan will hit 5.69 million by 2015.
This innocent looking robotic pony has a dark secret-he breathes fire like a dragon! Apparently, he wants to show the world that he’s worthy of serving as a mount for one of the Four Horsemen, once he’s full-grown of course. He was created for Maker Faire Detroit 2011, and is cleverly controlled via Wii-mote. The battlefields of the future just became a much stranger place.
In the future, dancing mini robots will initiate the robotic revolution against mankind! Well, maybe not, but this video demonstrates how they can be programmed to get down, Dance Dance Revolution style. Watch in amazement as those little mechanical feet step in an extremely robotic manner! Marvel at how cute he is, albeit in a sinister way! Just don’t expect to see this little guy crushing high scores until he can play without hanging on to the bar.
Canadian robot enthusiast DJ Sures built a working Wall-E! He started with a Wall-E toy, but replaced the works inside.
Wall-E is built around an EZ-B Bluetooth Robot controller. All the software functions are handled with the complementary EZ-builder software. All this isn’t revolutionary – our Lego Mindstorms RCX from 1998 could handle object tracking with the Lego camera. Wall-E has 5 servos inside of him as well as an eBay 2.4 GHz wireless camera.
See a video of Wall-E in action at Hack-a-Day. Link -via The Daily What Geek
We brought you a video of this robot mouth a year ago, but that video was taken down. The rubber robotic mouth was developed by Professor Hideyuki Sawada at Kagawa University in Japan to help hearing-impaired people with their speech. It was creepy enough back then, but now the mouth has learned to sing! In the newest video, the mouth sings the Japanese children’s tune “Kagome Kagome.” The lips start to move about 30 seconds in. Link to story. Link to website. -via Fortean Times
Does this remind you of a certain Imperial Walker from the movie The Empire Strikes Back? In 1962, General Electric conceived the Cybernetic Anthropmorophous Machine (CAM), which became known as the Walking Truck.
The Army liked what GE had been testing and awarded a contract for building the experimental vehicle in 1966, a year after America began sending troops to Vietnam. But the same super-sensitive, hand-and-foot-controlled hydraulics that enabled the CAM to casually push aside a jeep, or gently paw a GE light bulb without breaking it, also made it impractical for prolonged battlefield use. Operators found the constant manipulation of the controls very fatiguing, leading the project to be mothballed.
In additional to the fictional AT-AT, this reminds us of BigDog from Boston Dynamics. See more pictures of the CAM at GE Reports. Link
I can’t juggle at all. I have tried before, but I always drop the balls or whatever I am juggling. This robot can juggle and do it very well, I am a little jealous. It does the deed very loudly though with lots of whirring and noise. It uses high-speed cameras to see where the balls are and adjust the trajectory so they go into the waiting “hands” to be tossed up again.
If you were around in the 80′s, you had a Rubik’s Cube puzzle. I hated those things and always resorted to pulling the stickers off to win in frustration. Some students from Swinburne University of Technology created a robot that can solve the puzzle in 10.69 seconds. That under 11-second time includes time for scanning the faces of the cube and having the algorithm process the scans to solve the cube. link
The Great Pyramid of Giza contains narrow passageways and chambers that have never been explored. A small robot was sent into an 8-inch wide chute in 1993 and 2002, but both expeditions ran into something impassable. Now a new robot called Djedi with the ability to take pictures around corners is making headway and sending back pictures of previously unseen hieroglyphs and architecture.
The winning robot, designed by Leeds University, has indeed gone further than anyone has ever been before in the pyramid.
The project began with the exploration of the southern shaft, which ends at the so called “Gantenbrink’s door.”
The robot was able to climb inside the walls of the shaft while carrying a “micro snake” camera that can see around corners.
Unlike previous expeditions, in which camera images were only taken looking straight ahead, the bendy camera was small enough to fit through a small hole in a stone “door,” giving researchers a clear view into the chamber beyond. It was at that time that the camera sent back images of 4,500-year-old markings.
“There are many unanswered questions that these images raise,” Richardson told Discovery News. “Why is there writing in this space? What does the writing say? There appears to be a masonry cutting mark next to the figures: why was it not cut along this line?” Roberston wondered.
Read more about the Djedi project at Discovery News. Link -via the Presurfer
(Image credit: Djedi Team)
If you’re like me you hate having to give a tip to the Bellboy for carrying your bags. Well now you won’t have to if you stay at New York City’s new futuristic Yotel Hotel.
Yobot, a direct descendant of the robots working in automobile-assembly plants, deftly grabs, lifts and stores baskets containing luggage, much to the delight of sidewalk onlookers at its street-level window. Guests needing to store luggage start Yobot with their room cards and then follow instructions on a video screen as the luggage hatchway opens and closes before Yobot goes to work. The large robot moves surprisingly smoothly for its size as it locates the proper drawer space for the luggage and puts it away.
Scientists and engineers are getting pretty adept at building real life robots then can do a myriad of amazing things. What would happen if you gave to robotic arms light sabers? The folks at Yaskawa did just that. Watch full video demonstration at the link.
The students and faculty at Cornell’s Biorobotics and Locomotion lab constructed the weird looking robot you see here dubbed Ranger. The bot set a new distance record for walking 40.5-miles on a single battery with a single charge. It took Ranger 30 hours, 49 minutes, and 2 seconds to walk that distance to take the record. The previous record was set by last year’s Ranger at 14.3-miles. link
Robots and lightsabers are cool when apart but combine them, and you have something that is too much for most geeks to pass up. These Yaskawa Motoman robots are generally found on assembly lines, not dueling it out Jedi versus Sith style. link
Robots are cool and all around the country and world lots of students, engineers and researchers are hard at work perfecting the human machine interface, and robots are the focus of much of that study. A new bot has been unveiled called POLYRO – short for oPen sOurce friendLY RObot. The designer of the bot is Tim Payne and POLYRO is surprisingly inexpensive to build. The bot has webcam eyes, appears to ride on a Roomba base, and its brain is a Linux netbook. It uses 11 Robotis Dynamixel servos and has a total price of under $2,000. link
If you need a handy alarm in the kitchen, look no further than the Robot Timer ($10.95) from the NeatoShop. They’re easy to use: just twist the head to the desired time, and the bot will ring when the time ticks down to zero. After all, who keeps better track of the minutes than a robot?
Link | More fun Clocks & Timers | More from NeatoShop’s Cute Store, listing all of our cute and kawaii stuff
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The beggar bot arms race has finally begun. In addition to DON-8r we saw earlier on Neatorama, there’s another beggin’ bot afoot: here’s DONA, an "urban donation motivating robot" which looks cute while asking you for alms.
Fast Company has the story:
If robots like DONA became popular, then we would quickly become immune to their charms, and designers would have to step-up the technology–a charity robot arms race with no end in sight. In the future as robots get more sophisticated, one can imagine an evolution of DONA as a more fully-functioned android that actually engages you in conversation to try to persuade you to donate. Already DONA creates some interesting ethical and emotional questions about why we donate to a good cause. Is it due to the cause or because it makes you feel good? How would you feel about giving money to aid a human if asked to do so by a persuasive inhuman machine?
University of Dundee student Tim Pryde built a robot for his fourth year Product Design project. He named it DON-8r because its purpose is to ask for contributions to the Dundee Science Centre. This video shows a test run.
Forgot to mention, there’s no hard feelings towards the girl who breaks DON-8r at the end of the video. It was user testing after all and clearly the head was not secure enough! DON-8r has since been repaired and recapitated
Read all about the project at his blog. Link -via b3ta
Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories has a contraption that will automatically pour six, count ‘em, six liquid ingredients into a cocktail glass for the geekiest mixed drink ever! Drink Making Unit 2.0 is a few steps up from the three-liquid unit they’d previously produced. Microcontrollers, LEDs, tubing, and the kind of equipment all evil mad scientists have around come together to make a machine that Rube Goldberg would be proud of. It looks good, too! Link
Comments Off The uncanny valley is about to get creepier, thanks to this realistic-looking animatronic eye developed by Dan Thomson of Visionary Effects. Will this be used for movie effects, Disneyland presidents, artificial girlfriends, or working robots? Maybe all of those things! -via Laughing Squid
This circa 1939 plan for a robotic dog on Mostly Forbidden Zone piqued my interest. I did a little digging and found an interesting story behind it. The Scottish Terrier, named Sparko, was designed by Westinghouse engineer, Joseph Barnett, to stimulate interest in their electrical products. The dog was the pet of a larger human-type robot named Elektro and was able to sit up, wag his tail and do various other dog tricks on command. Three Sparkos were made but none remain today.
The last confirmed sighting of Sparko was in California in 1957. The dogs were light-followers and legend has it that one of the three dogs was hit by a car and destroyed when it wandered out of an open door at the Westingouse lab.
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