MorpHex - hexapod robot can tranform.

Hexapod robot is fun to watch, and MorpHex is even more awesome. It can transform to a ball and then back to normal hexapod. The transformation is incredible! Let's check out the video demo:

Android Robot - Auto pilot project

Android smartphone is a very powerful device, with GPS, digital compass, gyro, and accelerometer inside, which can be a great platform for making robot. Moreover, the dual core processor inside can perform intensive calculations as well.

In order to let my Galaxy Nexus to control the motors, I used the cheap wifi router: TP-LINK WR703N as a wifi to serial bridge to my motor boards. I can simply send tcp packet to control the motors.

My ultimate goal is making an autopilot robot using GPS, but the result is very bad as the best positioning accuracy is only around 10 meters. I think GPS reading should only use as reference, I may need to consider other sensor readings to calculate the best estimated position of the robot during navigation. 




Anyway, here is the screenshot of my app:




Here is the video showing the robot using digital compass on the phone to adjust the orientation:

For GPS and digital compass programming, I would recommend you to read this project:

http://code.google.com/p/bearing/source/browse/#git%2FBearing%2Fsrc%2Fcom%2Falfray%2Fbearing

The source codes show you how to read the compass and gps data, also calculate distance and bearing of two locations.

Finally here is the video showing the robot in auto pilot mode, use GPS and digital compass to navigate.

AR Treasure Hunting Game by SIProp.

It is a very cool project developed by SIProp. Demonstration: Website : http://www.siprop.org/en/2.0/index.php?product%2FTreasureHuntingRobot

ROSJava - ROS pure java implementation.

ROS is a very famous open source project, Google and Willow Garage worked out a pure java implementation and it works on Android of course! So you can turn your smartphone to robot or just simply communicate with a ROS enabled robot. Check out the rosjava project: http://code.google.com/p/rosjava/

Geminoid F - Female Robot.

Geminoid F - the female robot looks like a real human made by Osaka University's Hiroshi Ishiguro, she can perform many different facial expressions and interact with people. She looks so real, you can see her blinking and singing like a human.

Also, Check out her singing here:

Robot sits on your shoudler

it is so cool, you can go to shopping with another one at home using this robot. He can see what you are checking in the mall and also interact people with skype!

Hanson Robokind

A walking robot with an expressive face!

Robotic Bear Pillow!

here we go, a new robot in Japan. It is a Pillow, if it hears you are snoring, it will turn your head to one side and hopefully you will store snoring. Check out the video here:

Hobby Robot rides bicycle.

Dr. Guero programmed a hobby robot for fun, and let she rides the bicycle in the same way of human do with no special balancing hardware.

Check out the demo:



via http://www.plasticpals.com/?p=30564

Robot with Muscle.

This is a very complicated robot to use human like muscle to move.

Check it out:
Hugo Gravato Marques
Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
Switzerland

Open Source Robot: Qbo

Qbo is an open robotic platform, it makes use of open source software, like Linux, OpenCV etc.



I am not sure about the retail price and the launch date, but I really hope it will be affordable for most of the robot lovers.

They also released an Alpha software of Qbo (a Linux distribution based on Ubuntu), I found it is very interesting to see what open source software that they used to build an intelligent robot, e.g. Vision system, speech engine etc, all can be done with open source software! So please check it out:

http://thecorpora.com/blog/?p=335

via http://thecorpora.com/

Weightloss Coach "Autom" released a new video.

Weightloss Coach "Autom" is a social robot helps you to keep fit. Check out the latest video here:

Robot hand using lightsaber!

We all love StarWars, there are tons of video showing people playing lightsaber, but this video is different, two robot hands are playing lightsaber! Cool!

Robot Aerobic - Cute Robot Teddy Bear from fujitsu.

We see this robot in CES this early year, it is really amazing, and here is the robot aerobic performed by the two teddy bears!



If you have kids, they should be happy to follow them for some exercises.

Robot fly like a real bird.

It is made by Festo, at the first glance, it really looks like a real bird flying. Lets check this out:




Aerodynamic SmartBird fight model - Bird flight deciphered: http://www.festo.com/smartbird_en

Open Source Robotic Platform : Darwin-OP

This cool robot together with a open source framework, you can write your own software to control it. How cool is it? you can take a look of this demo:


and be sure to check out the open source project:
http://darwinop.sourceforge.net/

it is around $9600-12000 US dollars, too expensive for me, but it is nice to see a cool robot:P

Robot Sing & Dance.

Another awesome japanese robot:P

My 2 wheels Robot Base.

2 wheels robot is the easiest robot base, I am learning by making it out. It is based on AVRtiny2313, I can control it via UART:) You can see my video below, have fun:)

OctARM - Octopus inspired robot.

OctARM can pick up things like octopus, it is awesome. (it looks like elephant to me more), check it out:

Robotic Vibraphone playing MIDI file.

I always want to build a robot that play MIDI on real instrument. Recently, I discovered the "Meet Marv" project is what I want. Marv is a MIDI Actuated Robotic Vibraphone, which can play MIDI file, it is used for future research on musical automation (cool!).


Check out the demo here:


Link:
http://www.robovibes.com/