YouTube user “Hinamitetu” (whom we’ve seen before) has posted another amazing video of his work in robot gymnastics. His latest creation, “No. 14,” adds a new degree of freedom that allows it to twist at the shoulders. The builder kindly shows us some of the motors used in the robot, weighs it in at nearly 3 kg, and then gives us a demonstration. Watch to the end for the amazing dismount.
King Kizer, the world-class Robo-One competitor built by the Maru family, demonstrates its new 2-legged dropkick attack in a video published this weekend.
The Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University has announced its plans for the DARPA Robotics Challenge (DRC). The CHIMP (CMU Highly Intelligent Mobile Platform) robot is roughly human-shaped, but with some innovative twists.
Here’s a fun video pointed out at Robots-Dreams. It shows five Hovis Genie robots doing a choreographed dance to “I Got a Boy” by SNSD, a hugely popular Korean pop group. The Hovis Genie is just like the Hovis Eco humanoid robot, with two differences: each robot carries a cell phone (or similar mobile device) on its chest, and the legs have been replaced by a 3-omniwheel platform. The omniwheels allow each robot to rotate or move in any direction, including straight sideways.
I made a new robot this weekend. It’s not a biped, but it does use Herkulex servos, which are intended primarily for bipeds. I wanted to see how well they would work as closed-loop gearhead motors. (That, and I had a Magician chassis lying around just begging to be put to use.) Read more…
Robo-One 22 Winners. From left: Hauser (3rd place), Koruteju-Miharusu (Champion), Justia (2nd Place).
The results of the ROBO-ONE 22 competition in Tokyo have been posted. It was an exciting tournament, with nearly 50 humanoid robots duking it out for the title of champion. The winners are:
- Champion: Koruteju-Miharusu (コルテージュ・ミハルス)
- 2nd Place: Justia (ジャスティア)
- 3rd Place: HAUSER.
The video below shows all the action, as well as the dead space in between the action, when we imagine the contestants were recharging batteries, making minor repairs, etc. Don’t worry, I’ll guide you to the good parts.
7-foot-tall humanoid robots pummel each other in the ring in Syfy’s new TV series, Robot Combat League.
At Toy Fair 2013 in New York last week, toy robot maker Wowwee demonstrated a new robot expected to hit the shelves later this year. Called RoboMe, the new robot comes with a faceplate you can remove and replace with an iPhone or iPod Touch.
The iOS device then acts as the highly configurable face and voice of your robot, as well as enabling all sorts of new applications. For example, you can turn your RoboMe into a telepresence robot, showing your face as you drive it around remotely from another iPhone. The onboard iOS also enables speech recognition, face tracking, and other advanced features.
The robot was first unveiled at the International Toy Fair in Nuremberg, where it won the “Toys 3.0” award. But here’s the video from the New York fair: Read more…
Lem Fugitt, reporting from the 22nd Robo-One competition in Tokyo this weekend, has posted an excellent video and commentary on multiple-champion robot Garoo. Watch it now:
[via Robots-Dreams]
This video from Robots-Dreams shows King Kizer facing off against Garoo in yesterday’s Robo-One 22 competition in Tokyo. Both robots have won the tournament several times, though Garoo is the current defending champion. But King Kizer brings some new moves to the ring — including some the referee has never seen before, and was unsure whether to allow.
[via Robots-Dreams]
Bot Scene 