Bots High is a work in progress documentary by Director Joey Daoud. The film documents the efforts of several high school combat robot teams leading up the Combat Robot National Championship. In order to hire a professional film team to cover the mayhem at the Championship, Daoud is looking to raise $9,000. He’s asking robot fans to chip in to support his effort. The funds will cover expenses as the film crew covers both the finals in Miami and in San Francisco, and interviews several luminaries in the BattleBot field, like Trey Roski and Greg Munson, creators of BattleBots.

The second [Championship] is the National BattleBots Championship in San Francisco, which is open to anyone who wants to build a robot. Some of the high school teams will take their chances and travel all the way across the country with their robot to compete in a 120 lb. open class and see if they can hold their own against professional robot builders.

Daoud’s goal is to produce a film that is, “entertaining to all yet motivating to kids and teenagers to see how fun and exciting match and science can be.” If you’d like to help out, visit the Bots High KickStarter page.

I’m not quite sure what to make of this, but iRobot just posted a music video to their YouTube channel featuring the music of Lansdown and lots of footage of Packbots blowing up things. See it below:

NASA is working on an UAV to fly above the surface of mars and take high resolution video of the landscape below. The ARES mission will involve a 6.5 meter wingspan UAV that will cruise along 1 mile above the martian surface. The cameras on board are very high resolution, such that, “if there was a candy wrapper on the surface, we could read the name and ingrediants off of it.”

Once the plane reaches the surface of Mars, NASA plans on live streaming the video feed from the plane. That will definitely be something to watch for. No word on how long the plane will remain airborne.

A new Terminator Salvation trailer has hit the interwebs. Check it out in all its glory below (it’s pretty spoiler-y, fyi).

Thoughts? I’m honestly pretty skeptical. Sure, it looks nice, but its awful hard to have a coherent, meaningful story when there’s this much pressure to please the fanboys.

If you’re looking for a good story then you owe it to yourself to check out Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.  Now that’s worth watching.

[Via Botropolis]

Jon Stewart and his crew tackle the difficult ethical questions of involving robots in war. Hidden behind the humor, there’s some decent points.

[Via The Robot Report]

From the lab of YutaHiroto Tanaka, here’s some slow-motion video of a butterfly ornithopter in flight. It appears this video is part of a paper that was submitted to the IROS 2008 (International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems) conference.

[Via DIYDrones, Via MAKE]

A light diversion for the day – a German electronics store commercial featuring prehistoric robots (and a sexy cyborg).

[Via BoingBoing, Via Laughing Squid]

Ok, so we’ve heard songs about robots before, but unless you happen to be a fan of Flight of the Conchords, perhaps you haven’t heard this one – “The Humans are Dead“. Sung from the point-of-view of two conquering robot overlords, it’s a clever and distopian view of our future.

Oh, and be sure to catch the “binary solo”. It’s a classic.

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 saw this video linked from our friends at robots.net. “Roomba song,” I say. “It’s probably bad, but I’ll give it a shot.” Well folks, I was wrong. Great song. Great voice. Great robot. Check it out.

Howard Gordon who runs Surveyor Corporation just sent me details on their latest product, the Surveyor Stereo Vision System, or SVS for short. The system allows you to record high-resolution full-frame video using two video cameras for a complete stereo vision system. Better yet, the whole set-up is 2.5″ x 6.0″ and only weighs 5 oz.

 

The SVS is open source, and it is intended for researchers, educators and developers interested in enabling depth perception in their applications without the need for an array of active sensors (e.g. laser scanners, ultrasonics, infrared, etc).

The SVS uses two beefy Blackfin DSP’s from Analog devices to do video processing, and can also simultaneously control 8 servos and has a built-in dual motor driver capable of supplying up to 1 Amp per motor. Also included is WiFi connectivity via a Lantronix MatchPort.

The firmware for the SVS is GPL Open Source and comes functional with basic image processing features like, “histogram, pixel sampling, mean, frame difference, blob, scan, count, [and] find”. Currently in development are stereo correspondence and image rectification functions.

Surveyor is targeting this device to the educational and hobbiest crowd, and is selling the SVS for a (very) modest $550. It looks like a great new gadget for robot builders to stick on their creations. Toss on some goofy 3D glasses, and that autonomous aerial footage will really come to life!

Update: Howard has mounted the SVS system to a robotic blimp. You can check out some video after the jump.

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The Onion once again lays on some robot funnies. Previously they took on the question, are we giving the robots that run our society too much power? See the latest below.

Don’t forget that the 2008 RoboGames are going on THIS WEEKEND in San Franciso, CA. If you’re in the SF area, you should definitely stop by. For the poor souls that can’t make it, you can follow some of the goings-on via the RoboGames twitter. You can also keep an eye on the Flickr tag, ‘robogames’ for some neat photos. Oh, and don’t forget YouTube!

Here’s a comprehensive list of all of the events.

I’m off to go mope in sadness.

Have you ever wanted to see some hot combat robot action in slow motion? Here’s your chance. This footage was recorded at the Carolina Combat event this past weeked in North Carolina (how’d I miss it?!) by Robert Woodhead. The video is shot with a Casio Exilim EX-F1 camera, that can take video at up to 1200 fps (the video below is shot at 300fps). The quality and detail is absolutely stunning.



[Via BoingBoing ]



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About two years ago we reported on the pretty amazing BigDog robot built by Boston Dynamics. Well, BigDog has returned and is better than ever.

 

The latest video shows BigDog (with the same-old characteristic whine) carrying its load up steep hills (up to 35 degrees), over very rough terrain (like a huge pile of cinderblocks), and even over slippery ice (while being viciously kicked)! The BigDog robot is capable of carrying up to 350lbs and is designed to be a "pack mule" of sorts for the army.

You can check out the video below. You can read more about BigDog at the Boston Dynamics website. Check the video after the jump for a hilarous spoof.

[Via Automaton ] 

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