Is it a bird? No it's a robot. To fly like a bird is a dream of man and now a robot has achieved it.
Take a look at this amazing machine and then find out how it works. There are some developments that are too beautiful to miss, even if you are not interested in the hardware and so it is with Festo's collection of biologically inspired robots. To a programmer a robot is "just another platform", but to take control of a machine that literally flies like a bird is inspiring. It makes you think of new things that you could do. First watch the video and just be impressed that at long last we can mimic the flight of birds. Now look at the way the robot SmartBird flies. Anyone already planning the code that is needed to get it land on a wire and take off again? The wings just beat up and down but a torsional drive unit can make them twist to provide "vectored" thrust.
Further reading Air muscles power humanoid robot Festo Bionic Learning Network.
Robot Xylophone - an Arduino project. This is an Arduino project that looks fun to follow.
Watch the video to the end for a seasonal touch. OK, so this isn't really a xylophone but a glockenspiel because it has metal and not wooden bars but it is a fun piece of construction. Unusually, rather than buying solenoids, it goes into the details of how to build them and how they work. The video of creating coil formers and winding the coils is enough to make you want to run out and buy a lathe.
Its a nice Arduino project even if the final result isn't quite as resonant as it should be. Air muscles power humanoid robot. A new type of robot muscle has been used to create an amazingly dexterous robot.
All we need now is the software. Watch the video and be impressed! While the mechanical side of robotics doesn't really qualify as AI as such you have to admit that the hardware is important. In this case the breakthrough in creating a humanoid torso with amazingly dexterous fingers and hands is the use of a new type of pneumatic actuator. The idea is that instead of piston driven actuators the pneumatic muscle works in roughly the same way as real biological muscle - but using air and engineering to create the shortening in length rather than chemical reactions. Clearly the advantage is controllability and overall lightness and efficiency. Say Hello To The DARwIN-OP. It looks like the Robotis / Virginia Tech RoMeLa DARwIn-OP (open-platform, hardware and software) humanoid robot has been found at Sourceforge through the RoboSavvy forum.
Check out the comparison pictures to see some interesting changes, most notably the robot’s (seemingly) taller stature. The older version The new version Rumored to cost around $8,000 USD, the DARwIn-OP is roughly half the price of its primary competitor, the Aldebaran Robotics’ NAO, and has the advantage of Robotis’ popular servos (favored by RoboCup teams around the world) and its plastic parts can be printed at university labs to save money.
The robot measures 454mm (17.9 inches) tall, weighs 2.8kg, and has 20 degrees of freedom (head x2, 2 arms x3, 2 legs x6) powered by the new RX-24M servo (24kg/cm torque). [source: I, Bioloid ] RoboSavvy UK - Store. Multi-vehicle robot competition results. A team from the University of Michigan won the inaugural Multi Autonomous Ground-robotic International Challenge (MAGIC 2010) held this month in Brisbane Australia.
Jointly sponsored by the Australian and U.S. Departments of Defense, MAGIC 2010 aimed to attract innovative proposals from worldwide research organizations to develop next-generation fully autonomous ground vehicle systems that can be deployed effectively in military operations and civilian emergency situations. The challenge required competitors to submit proposals in the form of small robot models demonstrating the use of multi-vehicle robotic teams that can execute an intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance mission in a dynamic urban environment.
And it all looks like far too much fun... Five teams, three from the US, one from Australia and one from Turkey went through to the final round of the competition which involved navigating a 250,000 square-meter indoor and outdoor course.