Robot Never Misses Leg Day

We have heard bipedal walking referred to as a series of controlled falls, or one continuous fall where we repeatedly catch ourselves, and it is a long way to fall at 9.8m/s2. Some of us are more graceful than others, but most grade-schoolers have gained superior proficiency in comparison to our most advanced bipedal robots. Legs involve all kinds of tricky joints which bend and twist and don’t get us started on knees. Folks at the Keio University and the University of Tokyo steered toward a robot which does not ride on wheels, treads, walk or tumble. The …read more

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Soft Robotic Jellyfish Get Pumped in the Atlantic

In a recent paper in Bioinspiration & Biomimetics, researchers at Florida Atlantic University describe the process of building and testing five free-swimming soft robotic jellyfish. The paper contains build details and data on how three different variables – tentacle stiffness, stroke frequency, and stroke amplitude – affect the swimming characteristics of each bot. For a more in-depth build log, we found the original masters thesis by Jennifer Frame to be very thorough, including processes, schematics, parts lists, and even some Arduino code.

Though a landlubber may say the robots look more like a stumpy octopus than a jellyfish, according …read more

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Christine Sunu Proves the Effect of Being Alive on Hardware Design

Modeling machines off of biological patterns is the dry definition of biomimicry. For most people, this means the structure of robots and how they move, but Christine Sunu makes the argument that we should be thinking a lot more about how biomimicry has the power to make us feel something. Her talk at the 2017 Hackaday Superconference looks at what makes robots more than cold metal automatons. There is great power in designing to complement natural emotional reactions in humans — to make machines that feel alive.

We live in a world that is being filled with robots and increasingly …read more

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I Talked to Four Humanoid Robots and They’re Mostly Dumb as Doornails

“Human relationships can be hard to define.” Continue reading I Talked to Four Humanoid Robots and They’re Mostly Dumb as Doornails

I Talked to Four Humanoid Robots and They’re Mostly Dumb as Doornails

“Human relationships can be hard to define.” Continue reading I Talked to Four Humanoid Robots and They’re Mostly Dumb as Doornails

These Plankton-Like Robots Are Drifting Through the Ocean to Help Save Sea Life

The M-AUE robots may look like Minions from the movies, but they are the culmination of 20 years of hard work. Now, if only scientists could stop them from getting picked up at bars… Continue reading These Plankton-Like Robots Are Drifting Through the Ocean to Help Save Sea Life