Meet the robot enforcer: The Husqvana DXR 310 demolition robot
I for one welcome our new robot overlords.. And I have the sinking feeling that this particular robot will be the enforcer of the group. It’s a damn good thing that the Cylons didn’t have one of these, or it would have just chewed through the side of the Galactica and made for a very short series.
All kidding aside, the Husq.. Husqv.. the DXR 310 is a industrial demolition robot designed to work in hard to reach, or just plain dangerous areas. Everything is controlled hydraulically, but it’s actually powered by an electric motor. This self-propelled robot also has a variety of attachments, like jack hammers, scoops, and claws. This means it can tear through pretty much anything the operator (who controls it remotely) wants to. No idea how much it costs, I suspect if you have to ask, you can’t afford it.
[via Red Ferret]
Asus Announces Roomba Killer
When you think of a robotic vacuum cleaner, there’s a good chance that the Roomba comes to mind. That, or Rosie from the Jetsons. Well turn off those old cartoons because Asus (specifically their subsidiary AGAiT) is throwing their hat into the vacuum cleaning ring with the ECleaner.
The ECleaner looks very similar to the Roomba, but has a few tricks up its sleeve that the competition doesn’t. In addition to its vacuuming duties, it also has a 6000-hour UV light to disinfect the area that it is sweeping. If your room could use a little freshening up, it can also spread a fragrance of your choice wherever it goes. There still aren’t a lot of details currently, but we do know that they are shooting for a $150 price when the device makes its debut.
[ AGAiT ] VIA [ SlipperyBrick ]
HUBO Stabs Self In Head With Foam Sword
By Evan Ackerman
Could someone please explain to me why, exactly, roboticists seem to think that it’s such a good idea to give their creations swords? Like, I get that it’s a way to demonstrate grasping and dexterous movements, but if you start with robots demonstrating swords, you move on to robots fighting each other with swords, and this will be our terrifying future. And swordplay seems to be a bad idea for HUBO here more than most, since it repeatedly hits itself in the head with a sword that is thankfully not made out of anything dangerous…
Robots perform in ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream,’ said to outdo the cast of New Moon
Shakespeare’s plays have a long, long history of being modded to fit the times. We’ve seen Macbeths do the running man, and Cordelias dressed like Susie Sioux — and we’ve also seen Forbidden Planet, so we know that Robby was just a tinned up Ariel. So robots in Shakespeare? Sure, we’ve seen that before, but what haven’t we seen intertwined into bad theatre? Well, Texas A&M’s just staged A Midsummer Night’s Dream to include robotic cast members. Working with Professor Robin Murphy, who heads up the Center for Robot-Assisted Search and Rescue, director Amy Hopper hacked the script a bit to include an air robot — which is about the size of a pizza, and has been used in military operations — playing a fairy, and six small radio controlled helicopters. The robotics team used the opportunity to observe how cast and audience members reacted to the robots, and we’re pretty sure the audience warmed to them far more quickly than they would to Christian Bale or Sean Penn.
Robots perform in ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream,’ said to outdo the cast of New Moon originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Posted: November 20th, 2009
at 12:28pm by Laura June
Topics: Robots, Texas, TexasAandm, TexasAm, fairies, fairy, play, plays, robot, shakespeare, texas aandm, texas am, theatre, theatres
Creeper2 spider pumpkin bot
Want to creep trick-or-treaters this Halloween? If only you had the technical know how to make the Creeper2 robot that is actually a spider pumpkin bot, moving around with a Jack-O-Lantern on its back to literally cause real screams from its unsuspecting victims. Running on an Axon microcontroller, it relies on all digital servos with the ability to lift over twice its body weight. The software enables six synchronous degrees of motion, while future additions will probably include foot sensors and a remote control option.
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