Archive for September, 2010

FlyTech Hoverpod Remote Control Hovercraft – Blue

  • Flytech Hoverpod R/C hovercraft from WowWee
  • Moves quickly over smooth surfaces (for indoor use only)
  • Race 2 Hoverpods using dual-band control
  • Uses 4 AAA batteries (not included)
  • For Ages 8 & Up

Product Description
Experience the fun of Wow Wee Flytech on the ground with the Hoverpod. Use the two channel remote controller to swiftly maneuver the Hoverpod over most smooth surfaces. You can even build an obstacle course or race two hover pods using dual-band control!… More >>

FlyTech Hoverpod Remote Control Hovercraft – Blue

Elenco Scarab Robot Kit

  • Build Your Own Robot
  • Program Your Robot’s Movements
  • Get a hands-on introduction to robotics and robotics programming
  • Soldering required, soldering iron and solder not included
  • Brought to you by Elenco Electronics, the same company the brings you Snap Circuits

Product Description
A series of Robot Kits for the future engineer. Build these kits and find out how much fun electronics & mechanics can be !
Scarab is a robot that uses 2 touch sensors to detect obstacles. When its antennas (touch sensor) detect an obstacle, Scarab will first step back and then automatically execute a two-step manoeuvre to avoid the obstacle. The manoeuvre is a combination of “left turn”, “right turn”, “reverse” or “stop”. The Scarab Robot can be configured with dif… More >>

Elenco Scarab Robot Kit

  • Devil/ angel animated computer accessory
  • Speaks through its own built in speaker
  • Collectable and outrageous character design
  • Direct connect to computer via USB
  • Easy to install software compatible with both windows XP/ windows vista and Intel based Macs

Product Description
WowWee 8312 Chatterbot Devil/Angel WowWee™ Chatterbots are fantastically fun animated computer accessories to have on your desktop. These collectable, highly stylized character figurines always have something to say about what you are up to — and it’s not always appropriate! Each Chatterbot™ features a unique personality and a signature animation. Connect directly to your Mac or PC using the included USB cable, then listen and watch as your Chatterbot entertain… More >>

WowWee ChatterBot Devil/ Angel Animated Computer Personality

Hoaloha Robotics Robot Concept

There is an interesting article in the Seattle Times about former Microsoft robotics evangelist, Tandy Trower, launching a new startup named Hoaloha Robotics.  His goal is to create a $5k-10k personal robot (aka mobile manipulator) in the next five-to-ten years that can address the needs of older adults, such as telepresence activities and other healthcare tasks.  Hoping to leverage cheap 3D sensing (like depth cameras a la Microsoft’s Kinect) and inexpensive computing, this one-man (so far) company is another entrant in a new, budding market.  Having been personally involved with the design, construction, programming, and brief home-deployment of a mobile manipulator (EL-E), I can confidently say that Tandy & co. have a lot of work cut out for themselves — I wish them luck and success.

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  • Alive white tiger cub plush robotic toy/realistic looking fur
  • 1 x motor/1 x speaker/1 x tilt sensor/2 x touch sensors head and back
  • Moving mouth with lips that curl when tiger cub speaks and eyes that blink
  • Micro controller with recorded tiger cub sounds
  • 4 x AA batteries required/ batteries not included/ recommended for ages 36 months and up

Product Description
Introducing the first friends in a new series of lifelike cubs from WowWee Alive. With super-soft fur and a totally realistic look, this cuddly cub gives little tiger lovers a totally true-to-life experience. Pick him up by the scruff of the neck and watch his legs with go limp, like a real cub being carried by his mother. Requires 4 “AA” batteries, included. Measures 16″ long…. More >>

WowWee Alive White Tiger Cub Plush Robotic Toy in White/Black

Telepresence Robots in the News

Robotic exoskeleton from the 1950s

I would like to point out two news items involving telepresence robots that are definitely worth reading.  First, a "manifesto" reprinted from the June 1980 issue of Omni magazine where artificial intelligence pioneer, Marvin Minsky, shares his views on telepresence (a term he originally coined).  His essay includes a prediction of remote avatars (ie. Surrogates), operation in hazardous / remote environments, and even a discussion of how little development has occurred since the 1950′s (remember, his essay is from 1980; did you know that full-body exoskeletons were produced back in the 1950s?!).  Second, a NYTimes article by John Markoff that discusses five top American contenders in the space: Vgo (Vgo Communications), Tilr (RoboDynamics), Texai (Willow Garage), RP-7i (InTouch Health), and QB (Anybots).  The article captures the society aspect and high-level overview but lacks meaty technology details (though the side-by-side photo montage is useful for direct comparison).

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REsquared Humanoid Robot

Dr. Motilal Agrawal from the Artificial Intelligence Center at SRI International just sent an email to the robotics worldwide mailing list seeking qualified PhD or Masters job candidates (or interns) with experience in ROS, C++ / Python, and grasping / manipulation.   In the email, Dr. Agrawal points to a movie that shows off a new humanoid robot  being used at SRI that sports dual Barrett WAM arms, each with a Barrett three-fingered hand — see the movie embedded below.  I can’t wait to see what SRI plans to do with its new robot; they always seem to do such thorough work.  You’ll notice that this design is becoming increasingly common, from Intel / CMU’s HERB robot to Alexander Stoytchev’s robot at Iowa StateUpdated Aug. 31st, 2010:  My hunch was correct; we just received confirmation that this robot is indeed the "standard" hardware platform for the DARPA ARM-S program and was developed / integrated by RE2.

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Nao Robot from Aldebaran Robotics

By now, you’re probably familiar with the Nao humanoid robot from Aldebaran Robotics — the robot that supplanted the Sony Aibo as the robot du jour for Robocup’s Standard Platform League (international robot soccer competition) back in 2007 and retains that prestigious title yet.  Recently, Aldebaran announced a new Educational Partnership Program that aims to expose students of higher education to the joys of programming advanced robots.  Contemporaneously, Aldebaran announced a set of four product derivatives to match varied academic budgets, ranging from full humanoids, to upper-body manipulation rigs, and 2-DoF robot heads for audio-visual experimentation (see details below).  Crucially, this new initiative provides a stable hardware platform with a comprehensive software suite (alternatively, extensive open-source ROS drivers) to match your educational, research, or just whimsical robot needs.

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DARPA Autonomous Robot Manipulation (ARM) Robot

DARPA ARM Robot

Apparently my hunch about the recent SRI humanoid being the standard platform for the DARPA Autonomous Robot Manipulation Software (ARM-S) program was spot-on!  A new blog post on ROS.org confirms that this is the DARPA "ARM Robot" and that there is a public contest to name the robot.  The blog post gives a few hardware details: "The ‘ARM Robot’ has two Barrett WAM arms, BarrettHands, 6-axis force
torque sensors at the wrist, and pan-tilt head. For sensors, it has a
color camera, SwissRanger depth camera, stereo camera, and microphone."  The program winners are also enumerated: Carnegie Mellon University, HRL Laboratories, iRobot, NASA-Jet
Propulsion Laboratory, SRI International and University of Southern
California.  Be sure to check out the video of the (now confirmed) unnamed DARPA ARM-S robot platform embedded below.

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