Korra Nation Turtle-duck Date NightThis is my piece for the upcoming The Legend of Korra / Avatar: The Last Airbender Tribute Exhibition at Gallery Nucleus, opening this Saturday, March 7th, 6:00pm to 10:00pm. Mike and I will be there doing a signing for the first half of the reception (there are a limited number of spots in the signing line, but I’m not sure how they are working that), and hanging out for the rest. I think there will be a raffle, and plenty of cool stuff to purchase. The world's first bionic hand that will allow patients to 'feel' sensations set to be transplanted onto a patient Will give amputees a genuine sense of touchAttached directly to the nervous system via electrodes'We hope one day the user will just forget it's there' Dr Silvestro Micera By Nick Mcdermott, Science Reporter Published: 18:34 GMT, 17 February 2013 | Updated: 08:21 GMT, 18 February 2013 A bionic hand which allows the recipient to feel ‘lifelike’ sensations is to be transplanted on to a patient’s arm for the first time. Until now, artificial limbs have been able to pick up brain signals destined for the absent hand and translate them into movements, but they could not give sensory feedback. The new hand, which is attached directly to the nervous system via electrodes clipped on to two of the arm’s main nerves, aims to restore a sense of touch in amputees. Scientists hope the new bionic hand will prove to be a breakthrough in the development of artificial limbs The bionic hand is attached directly to the central nervous system meaning it can be controlled directly by the recipient
Meet the Amazing Robots That Will Compete in the DARPA Robotics Challenge Wow. I mean, seriously, wow. We've been incredibly excited to see the progress that Boston Dynamics has been making on ATLAS in preparation for the DARPA Robotics Challenge, but we had no idea what to expect from the challenge's Track A teams, each of whom will be designing and building their own robot with capabilities comparable to what we've seen ATLAS do. Today, October 24, is opening day for the DARPA Robotics Challenge, or DRC. The press release sums it up nicely: "over the next two years, teams will compete to develop and put to the test hardware and software designed to enable robots to assist humans in emergency response when a disaster strikes." The first half of this is the hardware: DARPA is promising that an "advanced variation" of ATLAS (which is what the above picture is showing) will be ready to go by June of 2013, and will be provided to the advancing Track B and C teams (see our previous post on the DRC for more details on the tracks). Drexel University Raytheon
Dreaming of Flying | Quite Curious I h ad one of those flying dreams, the kind that we all have at one point or another. This one though, felt particularly special, and I felt the need to record it somehow. My photo turned out much better than I thought it would. An old man saw me editing this photo at Starbucks and took great interest in it since he was a pilot, and curious about anything that flew. How I Did It I wasn’t going to show anyone the un-edited photos to keep up the story that I was a flying superhero, but I’ve been asked “How did you do that?” This weekend I threw a ladder, chair, and some other odds and ends into the car, and went out scouting for a location buy discount viagra for the shoot. Here’s the original, un-edited photo. I actually left the shoot feeling dejected, because I didn’t think I would get anything usable. First of all ,jumping on couch cushions is scary as hell, because there’s a good chance that you’ll either fall on the concrete, or land through the cushion cracks. Photoshop Trickery
Dynamic butler trajectories During his internship at Willow Garage Tobias Kunz, a PhD student from Georgia Tech, worked on a project to enable the PR2 to quickly transport objects on a tray without them falling off. This effort in conjunction with the sushi challenge aim to give robots the ability to perfrom tasks like efficient transport of every day objects and dynamic place setting. Dynamic trajectories are important for robots to execute delivery or butler tasks at home in a timely manner. The problem also appears in industrial robotics when objects are transported on tray-like end-effectors at high speeds. Instead, the tray needs to be tilted in a way that minimizes lateral force on the object. Tobias implemented two different methods. Tobias’ work demonstrates the use of motion planning to enable robots to execute tasks with complex dynamic constraints. You can download and playback these dynamic butler trajectories on your own PR2 robot.
3D solar panels can produce 20 times more energy than flat panels We see the trend in 3D technology everywhere: Movie theaters, home theaters, game consoles, 3D printers. But researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology recently discovered that creating a 3D-inspired solar panel not only help to keep up with the trends, it could draw in 20 times more energy than flat panel designs. Traditional solar panels lay flat on a surface or rooftop, facing the sun to collect energy. “I think this concept could become an important part of the future of photovoltaics,” said Jeffrey Grossman, the Carl Richard Soderberg Career Development Associate Professor of Power Engineering at MIT and one of the project’s leaders. The accordion-style arrays also work better because they receive solar energy from all angles rather than in just one direction. Researchers also say the tower style panel helps save space by standing vertically, and the design will be easier to manufacture than the cubes.
Flying Quadrotors with Your Mind Bin He, a biomedical engineering professor at the University of Minnesota, is developing tools to help people with disabilities. But part of that research involves some studies that look like pure fun. He and his students have developed a way to control the flight of a quadrotor using your mind. “Our study shows that or the fist time, humans are able to control the flight of flying robots using just their thoughts sensed from a noninvasive skull cap,” says He. Subjects wore a skull cap studded with 64 EEG sensors. Using special algorithms, data from the sensors were translated into commands for the robot. Using just those thoughts He and his subjects could fly the quadrotor through a series of suspended hoops. The key to this was some pioneering work done earlier in He’s lab that allowed them to first show that imagining a movement produced a very similar set of neural responses in the brain to actually performing the movement. Photos: University of Minnesota