The Motoman SDA10 (aka the Okonomiyaki Robot), created by Osaka-based robot makers Toyo Riki Company, is capable of receiving verbal orders to make traditional Japanese flour-based pancakes, called Okonomiyaki. Showcased at the International Food Machinery and Technology Exhibition in Tokyo, the robot measures 4.5 feet tall and weighs about 480 pounds. The Motoman SDA10 sports 15 motorized joints giving its two arms/hands the dexterity it needs to pour the batter onto a grill and flip the pancakes with a spatula. Watch the videos to see the Motoman in action.
Designed by students from the HTL Saalfelden engineering school in Austria, the Hexapodmeisterschaft is a six-legged robot that has been programmed to dance. Watch the Hexapodmeisterschaft swing its metal joints to the tune of Mambo #5 by Lou Bega. I guess the students were a fan of Bega, because the decapitated head on the robot looks just like him, minus the shades of course. Proof after the jump…
When you see old typewriters laying around covered in dust, what do you see? If you’re like me, you see ancient technology that shouldn’t even exist anymore. But, Jeremy Mayer sees things differently. Working with typewriters since 1994 in Iowa, Mayer sees robots hidden within the typewriters. He started by taking apart a typewriter on his free time and studying the individual raw parts of the machine. Taking what he learned and his love for science fiction, creating typewriter robots was the next logical step.
Created by associate professors Mark Yim and C.J. Taylor of the University of Pennsylvania (Modular Robotics Lab), the ckBot is one of those head-scratching inventions that leave you wondering how the heck they made it. The ckBot is a robot made of several small blocks that are each equipped with a computer, several motors, an accelerometer, camera, wireless connection, proximity sensor, and signaling light. When assembled, the robot is able to stand and walk. However, the amazing part is that when the ckBot is broken apart, by kicking it for example, the pieces are able to find each other and rebuild its entire self. More videos after the break.
Okay, this Japanese robot gives me the tingles in my spine. Called the Repliee R-1, the robot was designed at Osaka University’s Robotics Department and was modeled after a 5 year-old Japanese girl. The robot sports a very flexible, almost human-like skin. Out of all the humans they could have modeled the Repliee R-1 after, they had to choose a creepy little kid…
This will probably give me nightmares after I post this. Think happy thoughts…yeah…happy thoughts…
This isn’t the first robot we’ve seen able to draw, remember the Hexapod? However, the Hexapod really has nothing on Salvador DaBot. Unlike the Hexapod, which seems to draw random pretty shapes, Salvador DaBot draws, well…your face! Using its mounted camera eyes, Salvador analyzes the contours of your face and converts it to vector art and grayscales the image. It then basically “paints” the portrait. Video and sample drawing after the jump.
Matt Denton of MicroMagic Systems has upgraded his Hexagon robot, which initially only did face recognition, to be able to draw with a pen. It literally walks up to the sheet of paper and begins drawing a…uh, well…I don’t know what it drew. But, it draws!
“Using B.F.Hexapod with an additional floating pen attachment, and a utility I wrote to convert DXF files into translation commands for my p.Brain controller, I have got the start of a walking CNC router! Why… I don’t know.. it just seemed like a good idea at the time!
I still have to add a small routing head and test the cutting capabilities, but you get the idea. Resolution of the work area is pretty low, somewhere between 7 & 8 bit, with about 0.5mm repeatability, so it’s never going to make precision parts! Also I have only implemented straight lines within the p.Brain, so the utility converts arcs and circles into segments.
One obvious improvement to resolution & repeatability is to have a work surface (in this case paper) that doesn’t move around, in this video the only thing holding the paper in place.. is the hexapod’s feet. In order to keep the router out of the way while walking, I plan on attaching a servo to the router head to swing the head from a horizontal to vertical position. Or maybe I will have come to my senses by then!! If I’m really mad I could try some 3D milling.. as technically the hexapod Is a 6 axis CNC machine.”
Simroid, dubbed “Pain Girl”, is a 5 foot 3 inch robot designed by Dr. Naotake of Shibui of the Nippon Dental University in Tokyo to help new dental trainees to be more ‘gentle’ with their patients. The robot is able to express pain through the sensors in her mouth, capable of communicating with her dentist through speech, facial expressions, and body movements. Simroid even has sensors embedded in her chest which informs the teachers in the event a student molests her. Simroid, based off of a 28-year old model, was invented as a training tool to train new recruits on how to be more sensitive to their patients. It turns out, dentists are more rough on men than on women patients.
Unfortunately, I don’t understand Japanese, but it looks like “Pain Girl” can also be manually controlled by computer, by using a special software and a click of the mouse.
