Though not the robot theme-park we all secretly want, South Korea has announced that it will be building a "Robot Land", an industrial complex for its growing robotics industry. The location for Robot Land has yet to be chosen, but 10 provinces in Korea have submitted proposals. The cost of constructing the city is estimated at $500 million USD. Construction is slated to being in 2009.
A special government committee will pick the site for "Robot Land,"
which would be the first of its kind in the world, by November, the
Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy said. ... The city, to be developed as the mecca for the country's robotics
industry, will house manufacturers, parts suppliers, research centers,
exhibition halls and a stadium where robots can compete in various
events, the ministry said.
I wonder if the city will be guarded by the sentry-bots?
We received a note from Sven Behnke of team NimbRo. He pointed us to a video the team had uploaded of the final RoboCup match between NimbRo and Team Osaka. We also took some video of the event, but unfortuatenly it didn't turn out well. Sven wrote:
RoboCup 2007 took place from July 1st to July 8th in Atlanta, GA. In the final match the titleholder Team Osaka (Japan) met team NimbRo from Freiburg University (Germany). The same two teams had met in the two previous years. The 2007 final was one of the best humanoid soccer games ever, if not the best. Team Osaka played with one goalie and one field player while NimbRo used two field players. The Osaka robots were very quick to approach the ball and to kick it across the field. The NimbRo robots excelled in one-on-one fights for the ball and also demonstrated nice team play. The exciting game was open until the end. The final score was 8:6 for NimbRo.
The NimbRo robots not only won the KidSize soccer competition, but also the TeenSize Penalty Kick, where they defeated Pal Technology (Spain) 5:4 in the final.
Includes
all the parts needed to build a working underwater robot: frame,
motors, underwater light, camera, 50-foot tether, operator control box,
and dry-cell battery.
For all you skin-flints out there, you can also buy just the instructions and parts list for $50. Using the three thrusters and built-in underwater camera, you'll be up and swimming in no time - just plug the RCA video-out cable in a TV monitor for hot ROV action. Note that you'll need to provide your own, "PVC cement, soldering iron, wrenches, drill, scissors, battery charger, or TV monitor", ok?
In the league all teams use identical robots. Therefore the teams
concentrate on software development only, while still using
state-of-the-art robots. The robots operate fully autonomously, i.e.
there is no external control, neither by humans nor by computers. This
year, the league goes through a transition from the four-legged Sony
AIBO to the humanoid Aldebaran Nao.
This certainly is exciting news for Aldebaran Robotics, which is a relatively new company. They plan on releasing NAO to the general public later this year for around 3,000 EUROS, or about $4,000 USD.
We were able to talk to Bruno Maisonnier, the CEO of Aldebaran, at RoboCup2007 (this is prior to the announcement). You can check out the interview below:
You can watch all the videos and read more about them, on our sister-site, PleoBot.com. We'll also be posting some exclusive shots taken of Pleo at RoboCup2007. You can watch the latest Ugobe video after the jump.
Keepon, a robot designed to study, "dance-oriented nonverbal play with between children and the robot" gets his big debut in a music-video featuring the music of Spoon. The robot, designed and built by Hideki Kozima, and programmed by Marek Michalowski, has four degrees of freedom, two cameras in his eyes, and a microphone in his nose, and is absolutely adorable.
Keepon is designed to interact with children by communicating attention and emotion. It has four degrees of freedom: attention is directed by turning +/-180° and nodding +/-40°, while emotion is expressed by rocking side-to-side +/-25° and bobbing up to 15mm:
The 10th annual, international, AUVSI sponsored, autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) competition wrapped up Sunday. For the third straight year it looks like University of Florida's SubjuGator has taken first place. UF is followed by University of Central Florida with their year-old, rapid prototyped design, and the University of Rhode Island.
Several of the top teams, including UF, ETS, and Cornell had brand new vehicle designs. The official list of competitors has links to all the team's websites and journal papers. My own team, NCSU, had catastrophic system failures and wasn't able to qualify.
We received a note from Sven Behnke of team NimbRo. He pointed us to a video the team had uploaded of the final RoboCup match between NimbRo and Team Osaka. We also took some video of the event, but unfortuatenly it didn't turn out well. Sven wrote:
The 
Ugobe is busily preparing for an October launch of its dinosaur artificial-lifeform, 
Keepon
The 10th annual, international, AUVSI sponsored, autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) competition wrapped up Sunday. For the third straight year it looks like University of Florida's 
