LEGO Mindstorms EV3 to Connect to Android and iOS Apps!

Posted by admin on January 29, 2013
Posted in: LEGO, Products, Scary. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a Comment

LEGO Mindstorms, one of the best robotics kits, is about to get even better!

Earlier this month LEGO unveiled the new LEGO Mindstorms EV3 at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), in Las Vegas. As technology becomes more a part of us, LEGO Mindstorms is evolving to provide us greater connectivity to our creations.

Robotic Snake from Mindstorms EV3

Scary Robot Snake!

Like its predecessors, LEGO Mindstorms EV3 will come with hundreds of bricks, four motors and five sensors including a new infrared sensor that will enable the robot to track a remote control. The brick has been expanded. It employs an ARM 9 central processor that can access 64 MB of RAM and 16 MB of Flash for stored programs. It also provides an SD-slot that allows one to expand the memory. Most important is its new ability for connectivity. With a new Bluetooth chip, the LEGO brick can now connect to the Android and iOS operating systems so that one can use a smart phone, an iPhone or an iPad to control the robot! There will also be a USB port that will allow connectivity via WiFi.

The operating system is a version of Linux for which LEGO will release detailed documentation as well as an SDK. This is great news for hackers.

I am looking forward to letting this scary LEGO robot snake slither around my house!

NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) Rover Named Curiosity to Land on Mars

Posted by admin on June 26, 2012
Posted in: Autonomous, Exploration, NASA, Space, Telepresence. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a Comment

NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) Rover, named Curiosity, is set to land on Mars on August 5, 2012 at 10:31 PM PST.

An artist's conception of the Mars Science Laboratory on Mars

An artist’s conception of the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) rover, named Curiosty, on Mars. Curiosity is equipped with a Raman spectrometer, which consists of a laser beam that enables it to discern the chemical composition of the targeted area.

NASA has recently tightened Curiosity’s landing ellipse to put it closer to the science objective, which is a large uplift structure (mountain) called Aeolis Mons (Mount Sharp) in the center of Gale Crater.

Mars Science Laboratory Landing Ellipse

Mars Science Laboratory’s landing ellipse has been tightened to place the rover closer to the science objective—Mount Sharp, which is a layered mountain near the center of Gale Crater


Gale Crater is 154 km (96 mi) in diameter and is located in the Aeolis quadrangle at 5.4°S 137.8°E (see map).

Mount Sharp is a heavily eroded layered structure, which can be made out in this HiRISE image taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO):

Layered Mountains within Gale Crater on Mars

HiRISE image taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) of layered mountains within Gale Crater on Mars

Curiosity will land by employing retrorockets and lowering itself down on a tether. Here is a video of the planned landing sequence:

Robotic Grippers: Granular Jamming

Posted by admin on June 16, 2012
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Cornell Creative Machines Lab introduces a novel technique for robotic grippers based on the principle of granular jamming. Here is a cool video:

The grippers are made from a rubber balloon filled with coffee grounds. The coffee grounds are a granular medium (made from grains… small solid pieces), and when one removes the air the coffee grains pack together and become extremely rigid, which is a process called granular jamming. This enables the gripper to grasp and hold on to objects of any shape. The jamming transition is considered to be a new type of phase transition similar to the glass transition that occurs when liquid glass is cooled.

What is amazing to me is that by rapidly forcing air back into the balloon, the gripper expels the object—basically throwing it! It is pretty amazing to see such a simple gripper throwing a ball or even darts!

Boston Dynamics Cheetah Can Run Faster than ME!

Posted by admin on March 9, 2012
Posted in: Locomotion, Scary, Technology. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a Comment

Boston Dynamics funded by DARPA’s Maximum Mobility and Manipulation program have released videos of their new robot “Cheetah” which can gallop at 18 miles per hour (30 kph)! This sets the land speed record for legged robots.

Notice how the robot flexes its back while running just like living quadrupeds. Compare this with the video below of a living Cheetah…

While still a far cry from the 70 mph top speed of a living Cheetah, this robot lives up to the punch line of that old joke: I don’t have to run faster than the bear, I just have to run faster than you!

Quadcopter Swarm Plays James Bond Theme

Posted by admin on March 2, 2012
Posted in: Flying Robots, Music, Swarm Robotics, Video. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a Comment

Engineers at Penn’s School of Engineering and Applied Science have programmed a swarm of quadcopters, also known as quadrotors, to collectively play the James Bond Theme using real musical instruments.

The quadcopters make a dramatic entrance with smoke and lights, and then proceed to perform. The musical instruments include the keyboard, drums, maracas and a cymbal. A guitar built from a couch frame is also played by the quadcopters flying over the guitar strings and dragging wires across them. The quadcopters play the key board by hovering over various landing pads each of which is attached to the keyboard keys.

Watch the fun here:

Read more via Flying robots perform James Bond theme by playing instruments at Metro

Meet Nao from Aldebaran Robotics

Posted by admin on February 24, 2012
Posted in: Humanoid, Technology. Tagged: , , , , , , . Leave a Comment

Meet Nao from Aldebaran Robotics!

From the Aldebaran Robotics website:

NAO is a programmable, 57-cm tall humanoid robot with the following key components:

Body with 25 degrees of freedom (DOF) whose key elements are electric motors and actuators

Sensor network, including 2 cameras, 4 microphones, sonar rangefinder, 2 IR emitters and receivers, 1 inertial board, 9 tactile sensors, and 8 pressure sensors

Various communication devices, including voice synthesizer, LED lights, and 2 high-fidelity speakers

Intel ATOM 1.6 GHz CPU (located in the head) that runs a Linux kernel and supports Aldebaran’s proprietary middleware (NAOqi)
Second CPU (located in the torso)

27.6-watt-hour battery that provides NAO with 1.5 or more hours of autonomy, depending on usage

Giant Dinosaur Robots!

Posted by admin on February 24, 2012
Posted in: Locomotion, Robot Attack, Scary. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a Comment

Wanna make a robot?
Why not make it as big and scary as possible?

The National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology in Japan has developed some amazing dinosaur robots that can actually walk around and trample small children (and adults!) underfoot!

Who ever said you needed real dinosaurs to bring on all the trouble of Jurassic Park?
Bring it on! WestWorld Prehistoric Style!

Old Glory Robot Insurance

Posted by admin on February 22, 2012
Posted in: Humor, Robot Attack, Robotic Takeover, Scary. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a Comment

Do you have robot insurance?

Image of robot attack

Robot Attack!

Consider Old Glory Robot Insurance, because when they grab you with their metal claws, you can’t break free. Because they are made of metal, and robots are strong.

Seriously, robots are everywhere and they eat old people’s medicine for food!
Watch it here!

Another Robot Attack!

Another Robot Attack!

For when the metal ones decide to come for you!
AND THEY WILL!