Shane at Stuff Made Here wanted to see if he could program a robot with such accurate penmanship that it could fool a handwriting expert. He used an off-the-shelf X/Y plotter, then wrote software to convert typed words into pen strokes that mimic human writing. He also programmed a robot arm to place and stack multiple postcards.
We already knew that Simone Giertz likes building robots. She also enjoys working with stained glass, so she decided to combine two of her hobbies to create what is likely the world’s first stained glass robot. She started with a metal robot arm, then cut and soldered glass panels to replace the metal pieces. It was clearly one of her more frustrating builds.
Builder Handy Geng was worried about leaving his uncle alone to watch his workshop, so he did what any mad inventor would and built a mech to help guard the premises. It has caterpillar tracks like a tank, punching metal fists, and water guns which really should have been flamethrowers. English subtitles available.
Given the environmental impact of making electronics, Apple wants to make more of its tech using recycled and recyclable components. Fully Charged Show host Robert Llewellyn toured an Apple facility to see its Daisy recycling robot. It can identify 23 different iPhone models and tear them apart to extract their materials.
We’ve seen some pretty neat Doc Ock cosplays, but most of them don’t have real robot tentacles. Engineer James Bruton wanted to not only build a working tentacle robot but improve on its flexibility. His prototype is impressive, but only part of a single tentacle. We look forward to seeing his progress as he refines it.
Writer-director Patrick Townsend’s short film takes place in the near future when online retailers ship us items based on what algorithms think we need. So when the system detects marital problems between Liz and Shane, it ships her a robotic boyfriend. Will technology bring them together or push them apart further?
This magical machine from China takes on the duties of a playing card dealer. Set it in the center of your table, tell it how many players you have and how many cards they should each get, and it does the rest. It can also deal community cards. Holds two decks and deals to up to eight players.
After creating a robot that gives haircuts to humans, Shane from Stuff Made Here has bestowed one of his robots with a far more dangerous tool than a set of clippers. While his chainsaw-wielding robot arm is designed for carving shapes from foam blocks, we could see it taking off an arm if there’s any bug in his programming.
The 8-bit NES offered family-friendly games like Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda. But in the hands of Aussie builder Electrosync, the console is now a killer robot. After ripping out the console’s innards, he installed a remote-controlled drivetrain and a spinning sawblade to take down other beetleweight combat robots.
In 2011, Vagabond Works created a skateboard like no other. The Land Crawler eXXtreme is a robotic skateboard that walks using a mechanism based on Theo Janssen’s Strandbeests. It uses two motors and 24 legs to scurry along and has a load capacity of 300 kg or about 661 lb. We imagine its battery doesn’t last long.
Locking up your bicycle to a rack or pulling your car into a marked space seem like nice, low-tech approaches to parking. Tom Scott explains why some locations in Japan have adopted a much more complicated system, using underground garages and massive, robotically-controlled systems for parking bikes and cars.
The One Hacker Band is a robotic musical group that plays electromechanically-controlled instruments. They recently added a new member – a head that can sing. Here’s the latest line-up of the band performing the Tears for Fears hit Everybody Wants to Rule the World. Need more? Enjoy a little Radiohead.
We’ve seen an engineer build a robot that can paint giant wall murals. JBV Creative’s robotic painter is decidedly less precise in its approach to creating art, though its abstract paint splatters could still land its entirely randomized works in a modern art museum.
Engineer James Bruton loves to build robots with unusual drivetrains. For his latest creation, he designed and fabricated a remote-controlled robot that ambles along on 20 legs, like a giant mechanical centipede. Despite its complexity, it’s quite nimble. Now can we get a version with 100 legs, James?
Engineer James Bruton has built a variety of interesting robotic vehicles over the years, including an omnidirectional tank that moved around on three tracks. But that design had difficulty climbing uneven terrain, so he took his readers’ suggestions on the track design and made an improved version that’s a bit more agile.
When you want to make fried rice, it’s best to stir-fry it in a wok. But if you can’t be bothered with the stirring part, then you need one of these automated stir-fry machines that spins the wok over a flame while combining the ingredients. There’s also a simpler stir-fry machine that just shakes the wok.
Starting with the Maschinenmensch in Metropolis, robots have been a staple of science-fiction movies for a century. Using a series of AI-generated art, Stillskates explores the origins and evolution of on-screen robots and how they started as dangerous and powerful characters and gradually became comedic and helpful.
A useless machine is a contraption that’s designed to automatically flip its own switch off as soon as you flip it on. Fornax built a pair of 8-switch useless machines, then linked them up to flip each other’s switches, resulting in a perpetual battle for switch-flipping supremacy.
Wednesday’s pal Thing is brought to life by magician Victor Dorobantu in a blue costume removed by VFX. Jamie and Jay from Wicked Makers made an animatronic version of the hand instead. They started with a cheap Halloween decoration, then sculpted and cast a latex glove and painted it to look like the character.
Boston Dynamics’ ATLAS robot continues to amass new skills. We’ve seen how agile the bipedal automaton has become; now ATLAS has grippers, so it can pick up objects while walking and performing acrobatics. This demo video shows off some of the ‘bot’s newfound capabilities as it helps out on the job site – and does it with swagger.
Yeah, we know a spider has eight legs and not six, but Hacksmith’s rideable hexapod robot looks like a giant spider to us. It took a crazy amount of time and effort to create the massive mech, which they built from six excavators provided by Princess Auto. The year-long project served up a serious schooling in mechanical engineering.
Takara Tomy’s Masterpiece G figures are based on the 1980s anime Transformers: The Headmasters. There are figures of Trainbot Getsuei, Seizan, Shouki, Yukikake, Suikan, and Kaen – each capable of transforming from a heavily-armed robot into an inconspicuous choo-choo train. Combine all six figures to build Raiden.
