AI & Robotics
Robotics Trends: 22-29 April 2012
We don’t hear often about Russians in the robotics field. But, when they show up, they are impressive. About two years ago, we came across the Tesh-Drive, an amphibious off-road vehicle. Instead of wheels it uses two large screw-shaped cylinders that are wrapped with inflatable rubber tubes. This week, the news from Russia are related to humanoid robots, featuring SAR-400 a robot with a dexterous hand to fly to the space by 2014. It seems to be a serious competitor for the Nasa’s Robonaut though it is so far tele-operated. You’ll find in our selection of videos one where the SAR-400 performs a variety of precision tasks requiring either pushing hard or delicately handling fragile objects.
Among the 40+ news gathered this week, we got also interested by RosSerial made by Adam Stambler during his internship at Willow Garage. RosSerial is a neat solution for integrating new hardware with ROS. It avoids writing drivers by providing a general protocol for sending ROS messages over serial links. No doubt that it will leverage ROS-based experiments and prototypes using low-cost hardware such as an Arduino board.
Videos of the Week
News of the Week
- New Robots and Robotic Parts
- Software and Robot Programming
- Events & Shows
- Robotics Business
- Misc
New Robots and Robotic Parts
Russian Robots
- Russian Robot Demonstrates Delicate Touch – Robots.net – 26 April 2012
- Russia to NASA: Anything You Can Do We Can Do Better – Plastic Pals – 24 April 2012
Car Driver Companion
- Car With Robot Companion – Robot Living – 24 April 2012
- Chinese Automaker’s New Car Has A Robot In The Dash – Plastic Pals – 23 April 2012
Hobbyist Projects
- NXT Pinball Machine – The NXT Step – 29 April 2012
- Scissors Paper Rock Robot – The NXT Step – 29 April 2012
- NXT Bottle Opener – The NXT Step – 26 April 2012
Military Robots
- Knifefish: UUV minehunter for LCS shps – Robots.net – 22 April 2012
- Upgraded Reaper can fly 42 Hours – Robots.net – 22 April 2012
Other Robots and Parts
- 4WD Mecanum-wheeled kit from Nexus Robots – Robots.net – 29 April 2012
- Bird Brain’s Hummingbird kit unboxing – Robots.net – 24 April 2012
- Japanese Telepresence Robots – Robotland – 27 April 2012
- New Sensor – NXT2Wifi – The NXT Step – 26 April 2012
- ExoHand by Festo – The NXT Step – 23 April 2012
Software and Robot Programming
ROS
- ROS news: New Repository pkganeshpk – Planet ROS – 29 April 2012
- Eliminating boilerplate code with rosserial – Robots.net – 24 April 2012
- ROS news: ROS Fuerte! – Planet ROS – 23 April 2012
NXT Programming
- Simulink for the NXT – The NXT Step – 25 April 2012
- Neat video of an NXT game made in ROBOTC – RobotC – 25 April 2012
- Update to MINDdroid – Android NXT App – The NXT Step – 23 April 2012
Other Programming Tricks and Tips
- Full Set of Possible Characters for VEX LCD – RobotC – 27 April 2012
- Dale Dougherty interviews Alasdair Allan – Robots.net – 25 April 2012
- Arduino 5 Minute Tutorials: Lesson 5 – Servo Motors – RobotShop – 25 April 2012
- Apr 22, What Programming Skills for the Nao Developer Program? – About Robots – 22 April 2012
Events & Shows
- LIVE pictures and videos from 2012 FIRST World Championships in St. Louis – RobotC – 26 April 2012
- Video: Mech Warfare Rocks RoboGames 2012 – IEEE Spectrum : Robotics – 26 April 2012
- RoboGames 2012: Mech Warfare Post-Game Preview – IEEE Spectrum : Robotics – 24 April 2012
- 2012 VEX Robotics World Championship – Robots.net – 26 April 2012
- ROBORAMA: Robot Puppets Perform “Wizard of Oz” – Plastic Pals – 27 April 2012
- Korean Museums Lining Up Robot Guides – Plastic Pals – 25 April 2012
Robotics Business
- Two More Robotics Companies Get Acquired: My Robot Nation and Sensable Technologies – Hizook – 23 April 2012
- iRobot 1Q Profit Drop – Robotland – 28 April 2012
Misc
- Three Ways The World Will End For The Price Of One – Plastic Pals – 26 April 2012
- President Obama drives Sphero – Robots.net – 25 April 2012
- Video Friday: Festo’s ExoHand, Russian Robonaut, and Hugvie the Huggable Robot – IEEE Spectrum : Robotics – 27 April 2012
- Study Shows That Humans Attribute Moral Accountability to Robots – IEEE Spectrum : Robotics – 25 April 2012
- Robots Waited Tables in the ’80s Too – Plastic Pals – 22 April 2012
- Apr 22, Best way to study robotics in Japan? – About Robots – 22 April 2012
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