The M3-Neony and M3-Synchy were developed as baby bots aimed at testing machine learning software, and specifically to take a look at fine motor skill development. The hardware on this adorable little bot are some typical cameras, a microphone, gyro, accelerometer, and tactile sensors.

I heard about the M3–neony and M3-synchy through this Engadget article but I was disappointed the coverage was so scant. When I began blogging for GoRobotics, I mentioned briefly my loved for HCI, and in particular human-robot interaction – naturally, this article inspired me enough for a second article today. But, as I was excited reading about it, it looks like the article only mentions briefly the research goals of the bots. There is, however, a lot of information about what was used to make them for you gearheads out there. I’m going to comb to find the Japanese lab site if I can, in the meantime here is what’s available so far:

This article at Plastic Pals seems to have more detailed specs on these two robots. The article is long, but features more detailed specs on the bot:

[...] it is 50cm (19.6″) tall, weighs about 3.5kg (7.7 lbs) – about the size of a newborn.  A pair of CMOS cameras for sight and microphones for hearing, as well as gyro and accelerometer sensors, and tactile sensors provide various feedback. The robot has a total of 22 degrees of freedom, powered by high torque (41kg/cm) servo motors sold by Osaka-based robotics company Vstone.

The main focus is on facial expressions and arm gestures, so it is an upper body robot only, with 17 DOF (2 eyes x3, neck x3, waist x2, 2 arms x3), measuring 30cm (12″) tall and weighing 2.5kg (5.5 lbs). The head is equipped with a single wide-angle lens CCD camera, two microphones, a speaker, and 15 LEDs which cause the robot to blush bright red.  Combined with object recognition, speech recognition, and speech synthesis, the robot will be able to communicate in a variety of ways.  The chest and arms appear to be based on Vstone’s Robovie-X hobby robot kit.

If anyone finds out more about what kind of tactile sensors are involved, I’d love to hear about it. Tactile sensors aren’t something I hear about a lot and I’d love to put together an article on what’s out there.

You can catch a video here, and do check out the Plastic Pals article – they have a great gallery of these baby bots.

This little gem came to me courtesy of my friend Greg Baker, who is a lecturer in Computer Science at Simon Fraser University. Thanks Greg! This one was too cool to pass up.

Gåågle – It’s not as weird to pronounce as you’d think. It’s actually pronounced like Google and you’ll begin to see why soon enough. Gåågle Bot is a modified remote-control Roomba that bears a webcam, fueled by real-time AJAX calls that zips around taking pictures and indexing the real world as it sees it. Vacuum, index. I love efficiency!

The name Gåågle Bot is a play on the words gå and google bot. The Swedish word for go is gå. Googlebot, is the name of Google’s web indexer. If you don’t know what Google is, you are either lying or out of luck. Hence Gåågle Bot is a “going” indexer, indexing the real world around us while vacuuming your home at the same time! Can’t find that library book that is due tomorrow? Relax, just gåågle it!

Excited about this bot? Head over here and give it a try. There is also a pretty nifty video as well showing the bot in action. The main site has all of the components listed, the source code, and other tidbits to get you started building your own remote-control crawler.

Today I have an interesting tidbit for those of you on LinkedIn ! There is now a LinkedIn group for hobby roboteers! Now I have even more of a reason to finally get on LinkedIn – we’ll see how much the temptation drives me.

The meat of today’s article is MIT’s MeBot.

MIT has a pretty established humanoid robotics lab, meaning they’re at the forefront of our latent dreams to one day have cyborgs and robots walk the streets with our fellow man. (Call it whimsy, call it crazy, but I’m looking forward to an increasing number of robots in society. ) Anybody interested in robotics already knows of the legacy that MIT has for it’s robotics development, including Kismet – a rather impressive early attempt at robot-human social interaction (you can find more about Kismet here), and Cog – another human-robot interaction experiment that followed the reasoning that Cog should be able to learn from interacting with humans (more information about Cog here). MeBot comes to us from the Personal Robotics Lab.

Telerobotics is the area of robotics development concerned with – you probably guessed it – remote-control robots. The overarching idea of the field is that work needs to be done at a distance in some situations in life, and telerobotics is here to aim to answer those challenges.

The robot was presented at the Human-Robot Interaction conference in Osaka, Japan. Putting an OQO atop for a head plus some gesturing arms into the mix, it adds depth to the notion that you could really be there, and with a decent range of motion, rolling down the halls of MIT. Remotely. Via a robot.

The proposal here is that this mode allows the user to be more engaged through the movement of the head and arms. The head tracks  the face of of the user so that it can ‘look around’. The arms are moved by a set of hand-operated controls.

The “Gulper AUV” is an underwater vehicle that is programmed to look for information of use to the scientific community.

The group explains that it has ‘trained’ the robot to retrieve the highest-quality information back to them.

“We tell it, ‘here’s the range of tasks that we want you to perform’, and it goes off and assesses what is happening in the ocean, making decisions about how much of the range it will cover to get back the data we want.” says Dr Maughan of MBARI.

The Gulper AUV is used to help scientists keep tabs on various algae. In particular, these scientists are keeping watch for algae blooms that could means problems for the ecosystem.

It used to be the case that a ship would be sent out for a whole day every few weeks to retrieve the kind of information that the Gulper AUV can nab in one of its trips. They just take it out to the harbor, and away it goes on its mission. Around twenty-four hours later, it comes back, they hoist it away, and analyze the results.

The biggest flag to go off in my mind is that this must require some interesting exploration and path planning algorithms to deal with an undersea environment. Taking a look at MBARI’s website, the Gulper AUV is equipped with four sonar that operate simultaneously to provide a fantastic map of the sea floor in high resolution.

The multibeam sonar produces high-resolution bathymetry (analogous to topography on land), the sidescan sonars produce imagery based on the intensity of the sound energy’s reflections, and the subbottom profiler penetrates sediments on the seafloor, allowing the detection of layers within the sediments, faults, and depth to the basement rock. All components are rated to 6000 m depth. The vehicle is launched on programmed missions and runs on its own battery power until it returns to the ship, as programmed, for recovery – MBARI AUV Mapping Page

Head over to the article at BBC to hear an audio snippet about the Gulper AUV. it’s about halfway down the page. If you think that’s cool, then you’d also better head over to the AUV’s home page at MBARI to check out the technical goods.

Hi everyone, I’m Angelina and I’ve just jumped on board with GoRobotics as of late. I’m particularly inclined towards social cases and human-robot interaction, so I hope to bring you a lot of interesting stories on that front. I have a background in artificial intelligence (cognitive science) and so another thing I hope to do is to bring some of the interesting scientific developments into the public eye. Academic papers can be overwhelming even if you know the jargon necessary, so I hope to act as a translator and give you some tidbits of what’s going on in university robotics research.

In what has been an ongoing controversial move in the United Kingdom, police forces all over the nation will be able to draw on unmanned air drone robots for surveillance support. The units are remote-controlled and equipped with thermal imaging units, and they’ll set you back about $30,500. So far there is only one unit seeing action in the UK, and it’s already getting publicity for helping the police do their job.

The Merseyside police who happened to be lucky enough to have one of these $30,500 drones flicked on the thermal imaging on a tip that a suspected car thief was somewhere in the neighborhood. They managed to pinpoint the suspect from about three hundred meters away, and their actions also eventually led to the arrest of a second suspect shortly thereafter. Sky News has the coverage over here.

A young man was caught and arrested for breaking a law, which makes this a good day for robotics, and a good case for robots in a pragmatic, practical role. Still, speculation considers the increased use of robots within the police and military to be walking a rather fine line for safety, especially if future units are armed and are expected to operate with any sense of autonomy. Wired has an interesting article detailing the possible ways that police drones could be armed in the future.

As we say goodbye to the 200x’s and welcome the 201x’s it’s good to pause a bit and think about the world as it was ten years ago. There was no Wikipedia, no YouTube, internet access was still dialup for a huge portion of the population, and we didn’t have a whole heap of really cool robots. To highlight some of the great inventions of the past ten years, we’ve selected 10 of the best robots fom the past 10 years.

With any sort of list like this, things are pretty arbitrary, but we tried to pick robots that have made an impact in our culture or have impacted the hobby or science of robots in a major way. Below you’ll find 10 amazing robots from the military, toy industry, consumer industry, and science community that have had a lasting impact on robotics.

Take a look and tell us what you think. If you had to nominate 10 robots of the decade, who would they be? Keep reading for our picks for robots of the decade.

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Finding decent SciFi/Robot shows on TV these days is pretty tough, especially since Battlestar Galactica finished up. Thankfully though, we have Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles – but maybe not for long. That’s where you come in – Help Save Sarah Connor. The show just finished up its 2nd season and probably hasn’t pulled in the necessary US viewership numbers for it to stay afloat. The problem is that this is a quality, well written, gritty story about 1) robots 2) human survival and 3) killer robots and Fox has a history of canceling amazing shows before their time. So, loyal readers, why not give TSCC a try, keep up with the latest Save TSCC news, and maybe send a note to Fox. We need to convince Fox that we need more robot shows on the air.

Update: The SciFi blog  IO9 is getting in on the action and starting a Flickr pool called “Sarah Connor Made Me Do It”, where people can submit photos of themselves posing with the show’s sponsor’s products.

A couple interesting submarine launched UAVs, one by Raytheon and another, VOLANS, built by a German company, are featured in this Register article. The Submarine Over the Horizon Organic Capabilities, or SOTHOC, built by Raytheon, is launched out of the waste disposal lock of a submarine. SOTHOC then decents to a preset depth where it rises to the surface and launches a unmanned flying vehicle to gather data. The UAV can relay the data back to the sub via antenna, or if the sub whishes to remain anonymous the data can be relayed via satellite back to the US. This system allows a submarine to lauch an UAV while remaining submerged, in contrast to the VOLANS, which launches via a mast attached to the robot. The VOLANS functions as a mobile periscope for the sub.

I’m anxiously waiting for the day when robotics achieves the pinnacle of engineering that is the “Retroencabulator.” This isn’t really robotics related, but I hope it inspires you to greatness.

I get a lot of emails and comments posted from folks asking questions about robotics. Unfortunately, most of them are rather specific and I just don’t have the time to answer them all individually.

Thankfully, that’s where a few cool products, books, and websites come into play. Back when I first got started in robotics (back in 1998 or so), there were very few books on the subject and even fewer websites or nifty products.

But, times have changed folks! Robots are now almost as cool as iPods and Emo.

I’ve put together a small list of items that you can use to 1) start your journey into robotics and 2) enhance your knowledge. Feel free to leave comments on other useful items. This is meant to be a starting point. It’s also a good place to find good gift ideas … hint hint hint.

Kits

1. LEGO Mindstorms

The venerable granddaddy of all easy-yet-powerful robotics kits, LEGO Mindstorms now comes in two flavors, the old version RIS 2.0 and the new version Mindstorms NXT. LEGO Mindstorms NXT sports an impressive array of new features, like ultrasonic range finders, powerful graphical programming environment based on LabView, and bluetooth, the old version Robotics Invention System 2.0 is still a good buy. You can pick up a set for under $200 off of eBay or perhaps find it on clearnace at your local toy store. Either way, LEGO makes outstanding building systems, and no roboticists shop is complete without it.

2. VEX Robotics Development System

I don’t personally own a VEX system, so I can’t say based on person experience, but I’ve heard lots of good things about them (if someone at Innovation First is reading this, hook me up). The kits are similar in design to an erector set of bygone years, and are very sturdy and well constructed. Vexlabs.com sells a wide array of add-ons and expansions that make the possibilities vast and varied.

3. Viper Robotics Development System

I recently did a complete review of the Viper robotics development system from Microbric. The kit is unique in that it has various modules that connect up to the central motherboard via little plastic connectors that also form the electrical connections. The kit is attractively priced and is well worth it, for the components you get.

The system is programmed in Visual Basic syntax and is based on the Atom processor from Basic Micro.

Books

Why learn the hard way, when you stand on the shoulders of others? These books will expand your knowledge and give you confidence about moving to the next level. Check your local bookstore, or use the links below to order off of Amazon (and help GoRobotics.net out!).

1. Robot Builder’s Bonanza, Third Edition (Robot Builder’s Bonanza)

An oldie-goldie. Gordon McComb does a bang-up job of introducing robotics to the real world. Check out our review of the 2nd Edition of Robot Builder’s Bonanza here.

2. Build Your Own Robot!

Karl Lunt wrote for Nuts and Volts (more on this later) for years. Afterwards, he assembled all his articles into this fabulous book, filled with nifty ideas on how to build a robot. This is great for your bookshelf. You can read our review of Build Your Own Robot! here.

3. Intermediate Robot Building

This is David Cook’s second book, in which he covers the topics of robotics in a bit more detail than his previous Robot Building for Beginners book.

Magazines

Books are great to have, but it’s always nice to have a steady stream of new information coming your way. This is a great motivator, and there’s no better way that by subscribing to some of these magazines.

1. Robot

ROBOT Magazine is a new magazine that focues on the educational and hobbiest market. The high-quality magazine always has interesting and informative articles for both the advanced user and beginners.  You can read our review of the first issue of ROBOT Magazine here.

2. Servo Magazine

Servo Magazine covers all things related to robotics. Not nearly as pretty or well layed out as ROBOT Magazine, but still informative. If anyone from SERVO is reading this, how about a little love and giving us a subscription!

3. Make: Technology on Your Time

This is one hefty magazine! Published quarterly, you can expect to find over 150 pages in this high quality “mook” (magazine + book). They cover all things related to hacking and making things, including robotics and electronics. Well worth the price.

4. Nuts and Volts

A great hobbiest magazine related to all things electronic.

5. Circuit Cellar

This is a bit above most beginners heads, but a great addition for the more advanced user.

Websites

Obviously, since you’re reading this, you’ve discovered the power of the web. Amplify that power by visiting these websites to learn about robotics.

1. GoRobotics.net

Of course we’d list ourselves first! Features robotics news, projects, and reviews.

2. The NXT Step

This a resource site for all things related to LEGO Mindstorms NXT (the first item on our list).

3. Robots Dreams

This site covers all the great robot news from Japan. Gives a fresh perspective on the other side of the world, and it’s in English!

4. Bot Junkie

More robot news to ease your cravings.

5. MAKE Magazine

Hackery and making from all around the internet. TONS of information.

6. Hack-A-Day

New hack every day. A must visit. Submit your hacks.

7. Engadget

All things gadgets. They also frequently link to us, so give them some love!

Toys

1. Pleo

Pleo is a life-like pet dinosaur. You can find out more about Pleo at PleoBot.com. Designed by the creater of the Furby, Pleo will learn and grow like a real animal. Pleo is a big favorite with adults and children alike.

2. Robosapien V2

WowWee toys makes a whole line of robots that are lots of fun and great for hacking. The RoboSapien is probably the most popular.

Hopefully, these links should get you started on your journey. If you have anything to add, please leave it in the comments below. Happy robot making!

This post is part of the ProBlogger group writing project!

I was recently offered the chance to review Microbric’s Viper Robotics Development Kit. I always love to try out new robot kits and see what’s on the market, so I jumped at the chance. Prior to Microbric contacting me, I had heard some about the kits. You may have read a prior review of the kit from our pals at robots.net, Sprocket’s Slog, or at Robots Dreams. It seemed like a unique concept and I was eager to see if it played out in reality.

Microbric, based in Australia, promptly shipped me a package containing the Viper kit along with the three main add-on kits: wheel kit, sumo kit, and line tracker kit.

The concept of ‘modules’ are the unique feature of this kit. They are the basic building blocks of a set. Each module is a self-contained unit with at least three connectors on a side, which provide power, ground, and signal to the main motherboard. This creates a modular system of construction that doesn’t require any extra wires or soldering. The modules are attached to each other, or the motherboard, via a ‘bric’. Each bric is a small nylon connector that contains three nuts. Three small screws are threaded into the nuts and connect the modules together. The screws form the electrical contacts between the modules.

To keep users from incorrectly wiring the modules together, each bric is keyed to allow it to be attached in only one way, and each module is marked to indicate which holes to align.

Kit Contents

• Each kit comes with a number of pieces, including

• 2 gear motors, with controllers

• IR sensor module

• 2 bump sensor modules

• 1 button module

• 1 switch module

• 2 led modules

• IR remote control

• 20+ brics

• screw driver

• foam wheels

• battery holders

• misc. connectors and pieces

• Basic Atom motherboard

The kit comes with a nice plastic container that can be used to store the parts. This is much like the original Mindstorms box and is great for keeping track of small parts.

A little bit of assembly is required in order to get started. The manual guides you through this process. This includes placing the small nuts into the brics (which can be tedious), attaching the battery holder to the motherboard, and detaching the various parts from their PCB holders.

The modules, motherboard, and connector pieces are high quality PCBs.

I had a bit of trouble assembling my first robot. It was often difficult to position the screws into the holes, and the nuts tended to fall out of the brics as I was trying to attach things. I imagine that after use the nuts will work themselves tightly into the nylon brics and not fall out as often. Perhaps a little dab of glue between the nuts and brics would also help.

I was also sometimes confused when trying to connect modules and making sure that they were facing the right direction. The keying on the brics is very slight and takes a bit of close examination to determine which side to place on which module. Some sort of indication molded into the bric’s plastic would probably help this.

The wheels form-fit nicely on the shafts of the motors and are easily removed if necessary. The motors are high quality and provide a decent amount of torque. I believe they are, or are very similar, to the GM11 gear motors from Solarbotics. However, keep in mind that Microbrics motor modules also contain a controller. A single line of code (a serial out command) is all that is required to command the motors at a certain speed and direction.

The programming environment for the Viper kit is the standard IDE from Basic Micro for their Basic Atom line of products. The Viper motherboard contains an OEM version of the microcontroller along with power regulation. The Basic Atom is programmed with Visual Basic syntax and is quite simple and powerful. It has hardware interrupts, serial outputs, servo control, and many other features. It should be noted that the Viper motherboard only brings out 16 I/O lines which eliminates the use of the extra A/D inputs.

Microbric also has several add-on kits, including an extra wheel and motor pack, a sumo robot pack, and a line following sensor pack. These kits are pictured below.

To be on the honest side there are some downsides to the Viper kit. For starters, the kit doesn’t come with a printed manual. This is not such an issue now-a-days with ink jet printers, but I always appreciate having something in paper to reference.

Secondly, and far more damaging, is the fact that the motherboard runs on triple A (AAA) batteries, and not double A’s. Alkaline AAA’s generally have a significantly smaller capacity than AA’s (1.1 Ah, compared to 2.8Ah). In addition, it’s difficult to find rechargeable triple A batteries. Microbric would do well to create an add-on pack for different power sources. Perhaps even a lithium polymer battery addition. It would also be nice to have a module that would allow the motherboard to be powered off of a wall transformer.

There are a few other minor complains, like how it’s easy to cut yourself when initially removing the parts from their PCB holders. It can also be sometimes difficult to maneuver your fingers in order to attach certain brics, especially when building upwards. I had to use the screw driver a few times in order to lever a piece into place.

Aside from these minor complains the Microbric Viper Robotics Development Kit is a sound platform for experimenting with robotics. It takes all the difficult out of correctly wiring parts and eliminates the danger of destroying delicate electronics by connecting them improperly. The Basic Atom is a good chip that can be easily programmed and is powerful.

The kit retails for about $140 USD (depending on the exchange rate). And can be shipped internationally. They even have a compact package for international shipping. The price of kit makes it well worth the purchase. $140 is a steal for what you get.

You can find more information about the kit here, and purchasing information here.

Thanks to Josh Richards from Microbric for letting us review the kit.

The following article will show you how to build a simple robot, called "The Beetle Robot", created by Jerome Demers. It’s great for beginners and easy to do.

This is the Beetle Robot v. 3 you are going to build:



Before starting, I suggest you to read the complete tutorials. This will greatly lower the chances of you making a mistake.



Tools Needed:

• soldering iron  ( here’s a helpful tutorial on soldering )
• electronic solder
• diagonal cutter
• Mini glue gun
  

Components for the robot

• 2x – small 1.5 Volts motors
• 2x – small paperclips
• 2x – big paperclips
• 2x – batteries AAA or AA
• 1x – battery holder AAA or AA
• 1x – 2 cm of heat shrink
• 1x – wooden pearl  (for the caster)
• 1x – meter of electric wire
• 2x – Sub-mini lever SPDT switches
  
  

Here are the serial numbers of the components and tools from RadioShack .

Component

Number

soldering iron	64-2184
electronic solder	64-006
diagonal cutter	64-2951
1.5 Volts motor	273-223
battery holder	270-398
SPDT switch	275-016

Most of the components can be bought for much cheaper at Digi-Key, Jameco, or similar. At Solarbotics you can find the dual AA battery holder and the Mabuchi motor. You can find these components at any good electronic store.

Ok, so you know nothing about robotics huh? Well, you’ve come to the
right place. Unfortunately there are lots of people like you out there.
Robotics isn’t an easy hobby, and there really isn’t a whole lot of
information out there, especially compared to other hobbies. But, with
a little diligence and hard work, you’ll be up and running in no time.
Below are 10 hints and tips to getting started. Hopefully they’ll help
you avoid some common mistakes.
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Mindstorms
Robot Builder’s Bonanza
Roomba
Leatherman
RoboSapien V2
Subscription to Robot Magazin
Make Magazine
Servo Magazine
Nuts and Volts
Circuit Cellar
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Yesterday I received a preview copy of Robot Magazine’s "premier issue." After having seen it in very rough form during RoboNexus, I have to say that the actual print version is even more impressive. For those of you familiar with RC Driver or Fly RC, Robot Magazine will be from the same publisher, Maplegate Media, and have the same high-quality, thick paper, and rugged construction of the other magazines. Tom Atwood is also the editor of Robot Magazine.

 

The magazine’s purpose is described in the opening comments from the Editor, Tom Atwood. He writes,

 

Robot magazine’s coverage is multi-tiered. We will focus on hobby robots that come ready-to-run and on complete robot kits such as the emerging Robo-One humanoid robots … We will cover homebuilt robot projects, techno hacks and the latest plug & play accessories and gear.

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