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Related: RoboCup German Open 2008 - LEGO Sumo Robotic Championship - Musical Robots - Robo-One Grand Championship in Tokyo
Buy your own Tomy i-SOBOT Robot ($180)
Related: Open Source for LEGO Mindstorms - Making Robots from Trash - Asimo Robot: Running and Climbing Stairs - Science and Engineering Gadgets and Gifts
Stanford’s “autonomous” helicopters teach themselves to fly
Very cool. Related: MIT’s Autonomous Cooperating Flying Vehicles - The sub-$1,000 UAV Project - 6 Inch Bat Plane - Kayak Robots
Pretty cool swimming fish robot from Essex University.
Related: Robot Fish Debut in London - Robo-Salamander - Roachbot: Cockroach Controlled Robot - Robo Insect Flight
Toyota has a long term vision. The population of Japan is aging rapidly. Toyota has invested in personal transportation and personal robotic assistance for quite some time. I must admit this new Winglet doesn’t seem like an incredible breakthrough to me (their earlier iUnit seems much better to me - though I am sure much more expensive too). The interest to me is in their continued focus on this market which I think is a smart move. The aging population worldwide (and others) will benefit greatly from improved personal mechanical assistance.
The Winglet is one of Toyota’s people-assisting Toyota Partner Robots. Designed to contribute to society by helping people enjoy a safe and fully mobile life, the Winglet is a compact next-generation everyday transport tool that offers advanced ease of use and expands the user’s range of mobility.
The Winglet consists of a body that houses an electric motor, two wheels and internal sensors that constantly monitor the user’s position and make adjustments in power to ensure stability. Meanwhile, a unique parallel link mechanism allows the rider to go forward, backward and turn simply by shifting body weight, making the vehicle safe and useful even in tight spaces or crowded environments.
Toyota plans various technical and consumer trials to gain feedback during the Winglet’s lead-up to practical use. Practical tests of its utility as a mobility tool are planned to begin in Autumn 2008 at Central Japan International Airport (Centrair) near Nagoya, and Laguna Gamagori, a seaside marine resort complex in Aichi Prefecture. Testing of its usefulness in crowded and other conditions, and how non-users react to the device, is to be carried out in 2009 at the Tressa Yokohama shopping complex in Yokohama City.
Toyota is pursuing sustainability in research and development, manufacturing and social contribution as part of its concept to realize “sustainability in three areas” and to help contribute to the health and comfort of future society. Toyota Partner Robot development is being carried out with this in mind and applies Toyota’s approach to monozukuri (”making things”), which includes its mobility, production and other technologies.
Toyota aims to realize the practical use of Toyota Partner Robots in the early 2010s.
On a personal note, I bought some more Toyota stock last week. The stock has declined a bit recently. Toyota is one of the companies in my 12 stocks for 10 years portfolio.
Related: Toyota Develops Personal Transport Assistance Robot ‘Winglet’ - No Excessive Senior Executive Pay at Toyota - More on Non-Auto Toyota
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Cool video on the uBot-5 from UMass Amherst.
The uBot-5 is dynamically stable, using two wheels in a differential drive configuration for mobility. Dynamically stable robots are well suited to environments designed for humans where both a high center of mass and a small footprint are often required.
via: Pop Culture and Engineering Intersect Toyota has long been interested in personal robot assistants. And the uBot-5, under development at UMass-Amherst, is also looking to meeting that need: Robot developed by computer scientists to assist with elder care: |
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Grupen studied developmental neurology in his quest to create a robot that could do a variety of tasks in different environments. The uBot-5’s arm motors are analogous to the muscles and joints in our own arms, and it can push itself up to a vertical position if it falls over. It has a “spinal cord” and the equivalent of an inner ear to keep it balanced on its Segway-like wheels.
Such robots have a huge market waiting for them if engineers can provide models that can be useful at the right price. The future of such efforts looks very promising.
Related: WALL-E Robots Coming into Massachusetts Homes - Robot Nurse - Toyota iUnit - Another Humanoid Robot
Video of humanoid robot football (soccer) competition in German, April 2008. They are a bit slow but it sure looks like this is a fun area to watch the improvement of robot engineering.
Related: RoboCup 2006 - The Science of the Football Swerve - Robo-One Grand Championship - Toyota Robots
Dean Kamen latest invention was funded by DARPA. Once again he is doing amazing stuff. It is great what engineers can do (many worked together to get the progress so far) when given the opportunity. We need many more such efforts.
Dean Kamen Lends a Hand, or Two (August 2007):
The innovation in the DEKA arm lies in its ultra light weight carbon shell, giving the user an exoskeleton with which to gain the leverage necessary to do some of the extraordinary things the system makes possible, such as lifting a 40 lb. weight.
To make the system function, the DEKA engineers coated the inside of the shell with a mosaic of thin air bladders that can be individually filled with air to offer padding and rigidity necessary to make possible normally ordinary tasks such as operating a portable power drill. When the arm is not in use the system deflates, or can even alternately fill and empty to offer a massage effect, so that it is not painful to wear for long periods.
The DEKA system is controlled by a joystick that is moved by the remaining portion of the user’s arm and by a second control mechanism in the user’s shoe. Mr. Kamen said that despite the complexity of controlling an ensemble of motors and mechanical servo devices, a user can gain basic functional control in just one day.
Related: Water and Electricity for All - R&D Magazine’s 2006 Innovator of the Year - The Engineer That Made Your Cat a Photographer - Design for the Unwealthiest 90 Percent - Open Source 3-D Printing
Area educators attribute the growth to dramatic fundraising by Minnesota technology companies desperate to encourage future engineers and a statewide push to improve science and technology education. “It’s a long-term investment,” said Dr. Stephen Oesterle, senior vice president of medicine and technology for Medtronic, who pushed other companies to donate.
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The competition started in New Hampshire in 1992. Now, it includes more than 1,500 teams from around the world. Founded by entrepreneur Dean Kamen, the inventor of the Segway, FIRST stands for “For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology.”
Photo by By Bruce Bisping, Star Tribune, from left - Mindy Blom, Schanell Gauna, Andrade and teacher Jill Johnson
Related: National Underwater Robotics Challenge - Northwest FIRST Robotics Competition - Robots Wrestling, Students Learning - Rhode Island FIRST - 2006 FIRST Robotics Competition Regional Events
Robovie droid helps lost shoppers:
Whenever Robovie spotted people who looked disoriented, the child-sized droid wheeled up to them and asked, “Are you lost?” If so, the robot provided simple directions to the destination and pointed the way. If not, the robot proceeded to recommend nearby shops and restaurants.
Using the cameras to identify those that might be lost and then navigating to them is pretty cool if it actually is successful.
Related: Toyota Partner Robot - A Robot to Clean Your Room
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Robot nurse under development at Sask. university
Related: PowerBot - Robot Navigation Using Prediction - Carnegie Mellon Robotics Academy - Articles on Improving the Health Care System - Health Care Now 16% of GDP in USA
Two-legged robots battle for supremacy at the the Robo-One Convention in Tokyo. Very fun video. The robots has to be built from scratch by amateurs. Also see ROBO-ONE: Grand Championship Competition @ IREX (with full video of final match).
Related: LEGO Sumo Robotic Championship - Northwest FIRST Robotics Competition - Making Robots from Trash - Robot Dreams - Toyota Robots
Robot Hall of Fame at Carnegie Mellon
Robots from Science - These are real robots that have served useful or potentially useful functions and demonstrated unique skills in accomplishing the purpose for which they were created. These may also be robots created primarily to entertain, as long as they function autonomously.
Robots from Science Fiction -These are fictional robots that have inspired us to create real robots that are productive, helpful, and entertaining. These robots have achieved worldwide fame as fictional characters and have helped form our opinions about the functions and values of real robots.
The web site is not exactly great yet but the idea seems to have merit and the location is sensible; Tour the Carnegie Mellon Robotics Lab.
Related: Toyota Robots - Lego Learning - robots related posts - R2D2 (from Curious Cat Boston Science Museum photos)
The Toyota iUnit personal transport. Time named it a Best Inventions 2005. I can’t find much new on the progress made since then.
Related: Toyota Partner Robots - Electric Cars
Open Source Firmware, Developer Kits for LEGO® MINDSTORMS®:
photo: Lego TriBot - a flexible 3-wheeled driving robot with sound, light, touch and ultrasonic sensors - see more details.
Related: Books - Building Robots With Lego Mindstorms and LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT Hacker’s Guide - Posts Lego Learning - Fun k-12 Science and Engineering Learning - Building minds by building robots - Buy the Lego Mindstorms NXT kit online - $250
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