Robotic Blogs

I continue to be amazed by the toys that are coming out. This one will sell out quick!Lucky The Incredible Wonder Pet can do 15 tricks from voice commands - the usual doggy stuff: shake, sit, come, bark "Take me out to the ballgame". He walks, he talks, just like a real dog. This...

The Korean Ministry of Information and Communication (MIC) launched the pilot program of the national 'Ubiquitous Robot Companion' effort last week.The pilot series will consist of 1000 of five different robot models placed in homes. This first round of robots will be used to get...

Spanish company Aerovision demonstrated their Fulmar unmanned flyer for use as a forest fire monitor.The Fulmar aircraft is 3 meters wide and weighs about 20 kg (under 50 pounds)fully loaded. It is launched with a sling-shot and can stay aloft for up to 8 hours.The Fulmar can carry...

I like this new robot toy from Tyco. It is an R/C robot insect that includes a hidden 6-shot dart gun It is called NSECT for New Science of Experimental Combat Technology. There is a whole story line that goes along with that.At $100 they are not exactly giving it away but it sure...

Promoting the robot agenda.Robot researchers from 8 universities in the UK have joined together to form a network to promote the public understanding of robots.The program called "Walking with Robots" was launched October 23 in London. It will include activities for adults as well as university and younger students.The program will be designed to dispel...

Who says robots have to look like tin cans and perform acrobatics to be fun?Here is a project to create a simple motion sensing robot in a fuzzy stuffed sheep.The sheep's eyes have the motion sensors and the servo-driven head turns to watch the action.It zeroes in on motion, including...

A California inventor is proposing that we send cargo robots out onto the unused rails around the world.The railroad rails, he says, sit idle most of the time which is a waste of expensive capital. His plan is to make lightweight cargo robots to carry products around the country...

Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy Industries today demonstrated their new disaster assistance robot. The remote controlled robot weighs about 120 pounds, runs on treads and has video and two-way audio.Mitsubishi decided to get into the disaster robot business in 2000 and this is their first...

Toy maker giant Bandai will be offering a small remote controlled Wifi robot in December with a built in webcam.The robot, called NetTansor, can run for 2.5 hours on batteries and has 3 sensors to avoid running into things.The price will be around 50,000 yen (US$425).Welcome to Akihabara...

The latest Korean robot babe EveR-2 had to be rushed into emergency surgery yesterday after she malfunctioned at the Robot World 2006 in Seoul.EveR-2 Muse is the successor to EveR-1. Both are creations of Korea Institute of Industrial Technology, KITECH,research labs.EveR-2 has many...

This is pretty cool. It proves that people have an inherent need to automate every task. Maybe one day I will invent a robot to play solitaire for me.mechatrons....

Here it is! A complete retrofit kit to turn your car into a more useful member of the family.Utah company Kairos Autonomi offers the Pronto4 Retrofit Kit. It can turn any steering wheel vehicle into an autonomous robot machine in just a few hours. The kit will allow your vehicle...

In the future, farmers will look back on old farming techniques and marvel at the wastefullness of dumping tons of chemicals all over the ground. Why didn't they just put the treatments where they are needed?We have already seen this idea applied to kill bugs. Now it is also used...

An open source robot design from the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, EPFL. It is a collaborative effort from Autonomous Systems Lab, Swarm Intelligence Group and Laboratory of Intelligent Systems. Sounds dangerously like someone may be trying to devise a way to conquer...

"You want eggroll wit dat?"Chinese company Fanxing Science and Technology Co. Ltd in Shenzhen has invested four years and more than 2 million yuan (about 250,000 U.S. dollars)developing a robot that cooks perfect Chinese food.Called the AIC or AI Cooking Robot, the automatic kitchen...

Unmanned live fire demostartions for Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency (DARPA)took place at Warren Grove Air National Guard Bombing Range in Warren Grove, NJ in late Spetember.The tests included the use of Metal Storm (NASDAQ: MTSX) 40 mm weapons system firing from Dragonfly...

The new US $36 million library at Chicago State University cost millions less than a traditional library because its storage stacks were designed for robots.More than 850,000 volumes are stored in 3-story high shelves of bins that are only accessible to high speed librarian robots....

A paper published in Nature this week by and Mitra Hartmann and Joe Solomon at Northwestern University in Illinois, describes experiments using rat-like whickers to sense the features of nearby objects.The whickers sweep back and forth while the torque on the base of each whicker...

A new fire fighting robot from InRob Tech (OTC BB:IRBL.OB). You may remember InRob from the remote controlled bulldozer, remote control Hummer upgrade kit and various bomb robots.Their new firefighter, FFR-1, is a little monster. It weighs in at 940 kg (almost 2100 lbs). It runs...

The founders of Vision Robotics Corporation have applied for a US patent on an agricultural robot that uses a vision and mapping to guide harvester robots through the farm.The patent proposes that a scout robot is first sent through the farm or orchard to map out the fruit, weeds,...

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Toymaker Hasbro released their list of toys they are promoting this year for holiday season.As far as robots go, I was not all that impressed. They have their Furreal creatures like Butterscotch the pony and your various Furreal chimps and doggies. They have your next generation...

The US National Institute of Standards and technology (NIST) are doing their part to solve the problems caused by the aging population and shortage of healthcare workers.Healthcare Mobility ProjectThey are developing a robot to help disabled people move around their home. The robot...