ROBOTS DREAMS

Happy New Year

 Happy New Year from Robots Dreams!

Where, oh where, is Rosie my robotic maid? (Video)

We’ve all been waiting for domestic robots to become a reality, probably as long as we’ve been waiting for personal jet-packs to revolutionize our daily commute.

Ellie Rountree, from Rocketboom, takes a look at the evolution of home robots from the early 1980’s until 2009, and wonders how much longer we might have to wait before Rosie, the Jetsons’ robotic maid relieves us of domestic drudgery.

Micromouse robots viewed in slow motion (Video)

The latest generation of micromouse robots are lightening fast, so fast that it’s actually hard for camera people to track them.

The video clips below were captured during practice sessions for the 30th All Japan Micromouse Competition by Peter Harrison (Decimous) using a Casio FC100 camera set for 640x480 at 210 fps. While the high video frame rate effectively slows down the robots speed by a factor of 7X, the micromouse robots still seem to run surprisingly fast.

Watch for the mouse with extremely low ground clearance and four drive wheels towards the rear. That’s Kato’s TETRA robot design.

Great King Kizer robot has a new career in pro wrestling (Video)

The slogan of ROBO-ONE from the very beginning has been “Humanoid Robot Entertainment”, and we have to admit that some of the stunts that occur during the competitions, whether planned or by accident, turn out to be totally hilarious. It’s also well known that the ROBO-ONE name itself is word play on K-1 wrestling, a very popular “sport” here.

So it was no surprise when the ROBO-ONE Gran Prix competition organizers setup a demonstration match between the robot event champion, New Great King Kizer and a human professional wrestler. What ensued may, or may not be, great wrestling, but it was funny and kept the audience laughing.

Nakamura's JO-ZERO robot sets a new performance standard (Video)

To the untrained eye, Motohiro Nakamura’s latest humanoid robot creation, JO-ZERO, may look just like any other biped robot kit, but once it starts moving the differences are startling.

Nakamura, a long time ROBO-ONE champion, founder of Himeji Soft Works, and father of the WR-07 transformer robot that captured attention world-wide and logged over 6.5 million views on YouTube, has definitely given birth to a new star in the world of humanoid robotics.

Gingerbread Robot proves you can cook up robotics in the kitchen (Video)

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Originally uploaded by MITAuvLab

Believe it or not, the body and wheels on this little robot are made with gingerbread with frosting for glue. Pretty cool. :D

KondoCup Robot Soccer keeps improving

IMG_2591
Originally uploaded by Robots-Dreams.

Robot soccer, especially KondoCup Robot Soccer, just keeps getting better and better. We spent Sunday watching the 18th competition at the RoboSpot facility in Akihabara, and were really impressed by how fast, flexible, and accurate many of the top robot players have become. The game has become very lifelike, and exciting, to say the least.

Check out our KondoCup Robot Soccer photoset, and you'll see what we mean.

ROBO-ONE Light Competition set to spark new interest

It’s been obvious for the past several ROBO-ONE competitions that the percentage of newcomers had really dropped off, probably due to the fact that the ROBO-ONE committee has consistently raised the performance level of the competitions.

To turn that trend around, inject some new energy and enthusiasum, and to bring in a lot of new builders, the committee has announced the ROBO-ONE Light competition, a subset of the full-on ROBO-ONE event.

Horizontal bar robot gymnast in training (Video)

Hinamitetu’s robot gymnast is getting better and better, but still needs a lot of work on its horizontal bar dismount before the Robot Olympics qualifying meets start in the Spring.

Christmas EVE... :D

Christmas EVE
Originally uploaded by tim.perdue.

New 'Strawberry' servo released for the humanoid robot market

For serious humanoid robot builders who demand the highest performance, and aren’t overly concerned about price, the new PRS-S40M robot servo from Pirkus looks really sweet.

The servo, nicknamed the “Strawberry” servo by its inventor is extremely rigid with a steel case, aluminum horn, and full-metal gear set. According to Pirkus the servo features rigidity, durability, and superior heat dissipation well above and beyond anything that a typical plastic case servo can ever hope to achieve.

Merry Christmas from Chiron Beta Prime (Video)

Robots, music, and Jonathan Coulton, who could ask for anything more at Christmas?

Japanese factory automation robot cells get smaller, and more effective (Video)

Perhaps it comes from living in a country with extremely high population density, or perhaps from a cultural obsession with making things as tiny as possible, but whatever the reason, Japanese factory automation cells have always been much smaller and closely packed than their Western counterparts.

We first noticed this tendency while visiting major automobile factories here in the 1980’s. While a U.S. automaker would lay out a production assembly line with one robot per station, in a linear fashion, their Japanese counterparts would have two, three, four, or even five robots performing functions in the same space. It was truely amazing to see all those robots moving their arms at the same time, each performing some critical assemby, welding, or processing function to the car body. We had to wonder why they didn’t crash, or end up getting tangled with each other just like the key linkages on our old manual typewriter used to do right in the middle of typing a critical report.

Happy Holidays from RobotGrrl's dancing MANOI robot (Video)

RobotGrrl unveiled her MANOI Holiday Xtravaganza just in time for Christmas Eve, and wishes everyone Happy Holidays & Happy Robots!

Robot resue with a minimum of risk (Video)

It may seem like it moves about as slow as molasses on a cold winter morning, but it definitely gets the job done with a minimum of disruption and risk.

The Bari-Bari-IV hydraulic exploration robot, developed by Tokyo Institute of Technology Kitagawa Tsukakoshi Laboratory uses a unique stepped plate system to move debris and rubble in a resue environment without the risk of crushing people that might be trapped or triggering falling rubble.

Kondo servo with high speed gear set comparision (Video)

This is one of those total ‘geek fest’ kind of posts, so if you’re not into that type of thing then just skip it. But, for the geeks at heart, here’s a video comparision of the Kondo KRS6003HV servos with a special 02018 high speed aluminum gear set installed.

How a highly successful robot program first got its start (Video)

We’re always interested in how people, especially young people, get hooked on robotics to the point that it becomes a big part of their career and their life. The key is often some type of competition, and it almost always involves a leader or mentor that really cares deeply about motivating and sometimes inspiring others.

During last months regional VEX competition at the American School in Japan (ASIJ) we had the opportunity to have lunch with Don Chambers, the event organizer and guiding light behind ASIJ’s new robotics initiative. Don was kind enough to fill us in on how the competition first got started at the school.

Robotis Bioloid Premium robot sports strong sensor expandability (Video)

The new Bioloid Premium Humanoid robot kit is just coming on the market. It’s been a long, but well worth it, wait. The performance of the robot looks outstanding, and finally we’re seeing robots with real style and design features from Robotis

One of the things that has us really turned on about the Premium Robot Kit is its new controller with 6 external, general purpose input/output ports and ADC support. That feature should make using analog sensors are really pleasure.

Musical robot gets down on National Public Radio (Video)

Robert Siegel of NPR’s All Things Considered radio program interviews Gil Weinberg, the creator of Shimon, an innovative robot that plays the marimba and can impromise just like Thelonious Monk.

The motto of Weinberg’s music technology group at Georgia Tech is “Listen like a human, but improvise like a machine”, and they are getting darn good at it, as you can hear in the clips below.

21st Robot Sumo Competition starts off with a bang and some fireworks (Video)

The 21^st Annual All Japan Robot Sumo competition was held here last weekend, and as usual, it was totally over the top. The robot sumo matches are lightening fast, peppered with crashes, bangs, totally unexpected moves, and sometimes even unintended fires (see video below).

This years competition, staged at the Ryogoku Kokugikan (the venue for the human Grand Sumo Tournaments) was no exception. The action was fast and furious, featuring competitors that earned the right to compete through a long series of regional competitions.