I just received word from Berthold Bäuml, a lead scientist in realtime dynamic motion planning at DLR, that they’ve developed a new humanoid robot named “Agile Justin.”  Agile Justin is very similar to Rollin’ Justin (the ball-catching, Pulp Fiction-dancing robot), except that it has improved dynamic performance.   To test the new hardware, DLR researchers have programmed Agile Justin to throw a baseball.  Naturally, since Rollin’ Justin is able to catch a baseball (see the DLR project page), researchers set up an impromptu game of “catch” between the two robots — shown in a sneak peek video below.   It sounds like this new system is just ramping up and will be used to push the envelope in terms of full-body control: real-time coordination of hands, arms, torso, and mobile base for dynamic tasks.  I’m told that technical details should be forthcoming in academic publications later this year along with demonstrations at Automatica 2012.

I’m a huge fan of TED Talks — high production quality talks given by the world’s thought leaders, recorded and distributed for all after the annual TED conference.  I’ve noticed that robotics is a perennial hot topic, so naturally I thought: “I should build a compendium of TED talks about robotics (all on one page).”  And so here it is… all 21 of the TED talks that have graced the TED.com frontpage to date.  But alas, TED has expanded beyond the confines of the annual (expensive!) conference.  There are now dozens of TEDx events (independently organized TED meetups) around the world, and robots are equally popular at these satellite events.  So… I guess this will just have to be turned into a series.  These videos should get you started.  Enjoy!

There are many cool tech toys on the market… But Cubelets make building robots quick and fun.  Cubelets are a new robot construction kit from Modular Robotics.  Snap these small magnetic blocks together, and without further ado your robot starts to sense, plan, and act.  Your robot’s behavior depends entirely on how you’ve assembled the Cubelets; behaviors emerge from the local interactions between  Sense, Think, and Action Blocks — no single “brain” block and no single
“program” controls the robot.  For example, a Light Sense Block atop a Drive Action Block makes a light-fearing robot.  Turn the Drive Action Block around and it’s a light-lover.  The KT06 kit, launching next week at CES in Las Vegas, gets you started with six blocks; meanwhile, the KT01 kit includes a full gamut of Sense, Think, and Action Blocks.  Cubelets are great for little kids; they can build their first robot in seconds, but big kids (adults) find Cubelets just as much fun too. This Cubelets video (below) shows how it works.