Awesome Robots

Simon Stålenhag is back with more retro sci-fi paintings. Set in an alternate ’90s US and centered on a young girl traveling with her robot, The Electric State is a 120-page art book with a supplementary narrative written by Simon as well. More on his site.

Geek kings Penny-Arcade adapted their side webcomic Automata into a episodic series. It’s a sci-fi noir set in an alternate reality 1930’s United States, where advanced robots used to be made. The series is about one such being, a detective, and his partner.

Korean company Airo is working on a lifelike decorative robot fish called Miro. It can swim on its own and avoid obstacles, and can be customized with skins. It can also be remote controlled and equipped with a camera. It lasts up to 10 hours per charge.

WIRED UK introduces us to artist Patrick Tresset, whose latest exhibition includes a classroom filled with robotic “students” each of which has been equipped with a pen and paper. While the students doodle, three smarter robots at the head of the class draw portraits.

Oregon State University’s College of Engineering and Agility Robotics are giving the animal robots of Boston Dynamics a run for their money, with this awesome robot which balances on two legs, and walks with a gait inspired by giant flightless birds.

Roborace is knee-deep in the development of cars for its fully-autonomous racing series, and they just dropped some amazing footage that shows one of their test cars running a lap of Berlin’s Formula E track. Top speed for the test lap was 124 mph, but their goal is 190 mph.

Sony’s KOOV robot construction system is designed to teach kids basic robotic concepts. The colorful blocks snap together, and can be programmed using a graphical interface which runs on tablets and PCs. Modules include buzzers, sensors, and actuators.

Pixar animator and robot designer Alonso Martinez dropped by Tested to show off prototypes of his upcoming robot toys. Alonso wants Mira and her siblings to evoke empathy and joy through nonverbal cues, and we think you’ll agree that he’s on the right track.

Roomba co-creator Joe Jones is working on a Roomba for gardens. Tertill uses a nylon string to cut down anything that’s under an inch. It comes with collars that protect growing plants from the robot’s wrath. It can be charged via its built-in solar panel or its micro USB port.

For their 2014 project Carrara Robotics, Jelle Feringa and Lucas Terhall demonstrated how an Odico architectural robot can be used to cut organic shapes out of marble, as it twists and turns a wet saw blade through a slab of stone like a hot knife through butter. Skip to 1:00.

Automation has been around for centuries, but the rise of machine learning has led to new industries that need relatively few people to operate. As Kurzgesagt and many others have pointed out, this is an unsustainable trend that needs to be answered swiftly.

Turn away if you’re easily weirded out. Krolo added an appropriate soundtrack to this reel of creepy and scary animatronics by effects master Gustav Hoegen used for visual effects in movies and TV. Seriously, that squirrel freaked us out when it turned around.

Researchers from Tokyo University and Keio University designed a pair of robotic arms and hands that are controlled with the user’s legs and feet. Called MetaLimbs, the extra limbs can be modified with different “hands” and even provide haptic feedback. Think Doc Ock IRL.

If you’ve ever found how Segways and so-called “hoverboards” stay upright, check out Joop Brokking’s video tutorial, which shows you how to build your own R/C 2-wheeled robot, controlled via Arduino for about $80 total. Full schematics, build details, and code here.

Engineers from USC’s ACTLab and RESL show off a slick system for controlling numerous drones. Crazyswarm currently operates 49 Crazyflie 2.0 nano-copters, and can create coordinated aerial displays, and dynamically adapt their flight path around a tracking device.

Musician/technician Giuseppe Acito aka Opificio Sonico created a tiny set of bandmates using LEGO Bionicle robots he’s programmed to play a mix of sensors, smartphones, and other inputs. Here, they perform Kraftwerk’s The Robots and Daft Punk’s Da Funk.

It may look a little bit like a sideways stargate, but this robot is designed to carefully position itself around a Jenga stack, methodically pluck out a wooden block, and move it to the top of the stack. We’d be curious to see if it could play an entire game, but we’re guessing not.

Engineers at the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition developed this two-legged robot which can run at speeds up to 12 mph. It may not be as fast as Boston Dynamics’ cheetah ‘bot, but we still wouldn’t want to chased by one.

The MicroBot Push 2 lets you wirelessly control and automate almost anything that has a button or a switch. It works with IFTTT, Amazon Alexa, WeMo and more. The Push 2 has quieter gears than the original, as well as a timer feature and touchscreen compatibility.

James Cochrane’s robotic band bd594 learns to play Harold Faltermeyer’s 1984 instrumental hit Axel-F, with the Arduino controlled glockenspiel on leads. We’re thinking this version should have accompanied the Beverly Hills Cop video game. (Thanks James!)

During Star Wars Celebration, a veritable army of robot builders got together in one room to let their R2-D2s, BB-8s, and other assorted droids meet each other. It’s like a dog park for droids, and it should be open every day of the year. Kudos to Michael McMaster for the video.

The guys at Irfon Automation decided to see just how precise their Stäubli TX40 industrial robot was, so they attached a straight blade knife to it, and programmed the robot to play a game of five-finger fillet on an all-too-trusting human. Then they increased the speed.

While this robot might not be quite as showy at playing with model trains as these ones, there’s something hypnotic about this one toiling endlessly at its single task – to build a track just in time for the model train to get there.