Despite hundreds of researchers working worldwide in the area of robotics, their development efforts tend to be proprietary. Researchers may be working on similar problems but they rarely share code or hardware. Willow Garage was founded in 2006 with the idea of creating an open-source hardware and software platform. In addition to its hardware prototype, Willow Garage has also developed the Robot Operating System (ROS), which originated at Stanford’s Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. ROS is based on Linux and can work with both Windows and Mac PCs.
We want these for the Adafruit warehouse! via Bre…
IEEE spectrum (http://spectrum.ieee.org) takes you inside Kiva Systems’ robotic warehouse, where orange robots make inventory move instead of workers. Over time the system becomes increasingly efficient, with the robots learning from the wisdom of the crowd.
What this little guy lacks in stability he makes up for in simplicity. He only has three parts and can be made by just bending some metal. He’s kind of lazy and I haven’t figured out a way to get him to do any work. In fact mostly what he does is wander around in circles and often falls over. But he’s fun to watch. And since it’s a robot we don’t have to do an intervention for the alcohol abuse. Yes, there are may vibrobots and bristlebots but very few of them are cute and none of them are drunk. You need to be able to work with small items, and have about 20 minutes to spare.
Here’s a robotic hand that teaches sign language, including the international sign for “rock on.” J.D. Ritchey and his fellow mechanical engineering colleagues (Tim Campbell, Nick Haub and Brian Taylor) from Colorado State University created an acrylic hand to assist in teaching sign language. The Sign Language Emulating Robotic Assistant features all the digits of a human hand. Punch in a specific letter and the hand forms the sign language position. The students take sign language a bit further than standard letters. Punch in “rock on” and the hand forms the rock concert sign with the index finger and the pinky showing the classic fan symbol for keep on rocking.
