Kojiro humanoid goes musculoskeletal in a big way
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We just found a new friend. Kojiro, a humanoid being built by the University of Tokyo’s JSK Robotics Laboratory, has a detailed musculoskeletal system built to mimic the human body. It works on a system of artificial bones, muscles and tendons to create a robot that is theoretically more light and agile than your regular bot, and which moves in a more organic fashion to our untrained eyes. The bot has motors which pull cables that simulate the method which muscles and tendons interact, and has about 100 tendon-muscle structures, giving it 60 degrees of freedom — more than an average rotary joint bot like Asimo (34 degrees, last time we checked). The robot shaves weight with its lighter, plastic materials and small brushless motors. The idea is to make a robot that’s more people friendly by not being substantially heavier or more rigid than a human it might come into contact with. Of course, that’s not the only perk of a bot built like this: the human-style flexible and twistable spine gives Kojiro all sorts of abilities that your regular bot is just too straight-spined for. Like the limbo, for instance. The big difficulty here is that all the motion and flexibility means Kojiro is a big chore to program, and there’s an army of gyros, accelerometers and force sensors embedded throughout the bot to help it learn its balance. Currently they’re working with an iterative learning process to get small motions down until Kojiro can eventually manage more complex motions like sitting motionless at a desk for nine hours on a Saturday, tending to FarmVille. Check out a video of Kojiro in limited action after the break.
Continue reading Kojiro humanoid goes musculoskeletal in a big way
Kojiro humanoid goes musculoskeletal in a big way originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 07 Mar 2010 02:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Robot Teachers Enter the Education Workforce [VIDEO]
You may have had some instructors during your school years that seemed like they were simply carrying out pre-programmed, robotic orders, but not quite as literally as these profs. Singularity Hub reports that robot teachers have successfully passed a first round of testing in Korean and Japanese classrooms.
Thanks to trial work by the Korean Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) and the Nippon Institute of Technology (NIT), robots are expected to enter the “workforce” in 500 preschools by as early as next year. By 2013, robotic teachers could be holding court in as many as 8,000 preschool and kindergarten classrooms in Korea, backed by $44 million (USD) in funding.
In general, the Korean robots will be more geared to address younger audiences, with the Japanese robots designed for older students. NIT’s e-Nuvo is a Japanese humanoid robot with a built-in projector — a feature my high school chemistry teacher surely lacked. Nor was she sporting that futuristic Astro Boy look.
All joking aside, it will be interesting to see how well robotic instructors will fit into classrooms and what roles they’ll be able to fill. Do you think a robot teacher can ever actually replace a human instructor, or will the e-Nuvos of the world be relegated to the position of sophisticated classroom sidekick?
Tags: e-Nuvo, education, japan, korea, robotics, robots, tech
Lego arm moves slowly, rocks mightily (video)
If you’ve made a Lego skull you’re ultimately going to need some appendages to go with it, and Polish Lego-mistrz Paul (who goes by the handle Sariel) is the man behind this fully-articulated right arm. It uses a combination of electric motors and pneumatic valves that enable it to move… slowly. In a video embedded below that’s overflowing with Marilyn Manson angst (turn down those speakers, office-bound readers) you can see it shambling from side to side and rotating at the wrist as the pneumatic fingers are actuated. The range of movement is impressive, but this thing looks about as easy to operate as a dockside crane and seems slightly less precise. Still, it’s an impressive feat of plastic engineering; that it was whipped up over a weekend makes it even more so.
Continue reading Lego arm moves slowly, rocks mightily (video)
Lego arm moves slowly, rocks mightily (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 03 Mar 2010 11:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
LIDAR-equipped robot maps dangerous areas in 3D so you don’t have to
LIDAR-equipped robot maps dangerous areas in 3D so you don’t have to originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 23 Feb 2010 11:53:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Building Bioloid Premium doesn’t look easy, even if you do have $1,199 to do it
Remember Bioloid? How could you forget, right? Well, we had the pleasure of meeting his more expensive brother and Avatar-inspired-sister Bioloid Premium at the New York Toy Fair. Meant for hobbyist robot builders, the kit comes with everything you need to build and program the plastic and metal humanoid, including Robotis’ AX-12 servo actuator and ‘C’ programming software. But getting Bioloid to walk, run and dance to Lady Gaga is going to cost ya a whopping $1,199. That seems like a lot of dough for us non-robot builders, but this guy’s heartwarming demeanor and balancing act almost has us forking it over. You’ll see what we mean in the video just past the break.
Gallery: Bioloid Premium hands-on
Continue reading Building Bioloid Premium doesn’t look easy, even if you do have $1,199 to do it
Building Bioloid Premium doesn’t look easy, even if you do have $1,199 to do it originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 15 Feb 2010 22:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Quasi robot melts hearts at Toy Fair, Interbots promises toy version soon
You’d have to be heartless to walk by Interbots’ Quasi and not crack a smile. Q, as we like to call him, isn’t an autonomous bot, but instead everything from his facial expressions to his speech are controlled wirelessly via a tablet PC. As you can see in the video after the break, his master can change his eye color and arm / hand movements with just a touch of the stylus. So, why did Quasi, who was born at Carnegie Mellon in 2006, make an appearance at the 2010 Toy Fair? Interbots is planning to bring an affordable child-friendly version of the $80,000 bot to market by the end of the year, and the reps on hand told us that it’ll even have similar puppeteering capabilities. Sounds like a potential nightmare for parents, but there’s something about this guy that makes us sure about his future as much-adored, bona fide family member.
Gallery: Interbots Quasi robot
Continue reading Quasi robot melts hearts at Toy Fair, Interbots promises toy version soon
Quasi robot melts hearts at Toy Fair, Interbots promises toy version soon originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 15 Feb 2010 20:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Ben-Gurion University’s wall-climbing robots scale defenses, haunt nightmares, stain faux-finishes (video)
We’ve seen plenty of prototype mechanisms for autonomous dealies that can scale the straightest of walls, but never have we seen so many gathered together into what can only be called a festival of disconcerting feats of robotic ingenuity. One uses magnets, one has little claws, and one uses integrated hot glue guns that would leave you with no doubt that something sticky had been exploring your walls. They were all developed by a team of engineers working with Amir Shapiro at Ben-Gurion University in Israel, where he studies biomimetrics: technology that tries to do what animals do. Applications for all this? The Israeli military is apparently quite interested, a force that we will be working extra hard to stay within the good graces of from now on.
Ben-Gurion University’s wall-climbing robots scale defenses, haunt nightmares, stain faux-finishes (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 19 Jan 2010 10:12:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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