bots IN BRIEF
BOT ON A BUDGET
Tim Payne — the creator of the
bipedal humanoid PROTO- 2 — has
developed an open source robot that
can be built on a budget. It’s called
POLYRO (oPen sOurce friendLY
RObot), and makes extensive use of
Willow Garage’s TurtleBot as its
mobile base. TurtleBot takes advantage
of low cost components like the
iRobot Create and Microsoft Kinect
sensor, allowing it to autonomously
map and navigate its environment.
What POLYRO brings to the table is
some much needed personality; it is
primarily designed for human-robot interaction and has a humanoid upper body. POLYRO
stands 99 cm ( 3’ 3”) tall and weighs 8. 6 kg ( 19. 5 lbs) without its netbook. Its two arms have
three degrees of freedom apiece, its head nods, and its stereoscopic eyes can blink. It uses
a total of 11 Robotis Dynamixel servos in its current design, two USB webcams for eyes,
and a netbook PC running Linux, but together with all the miscellaneous parts it still adds
up to less than $2,000. The additional degrees of freedom will create more expressive gestures, and additions like speakers and
microphones would allow it to use speech recognition and synthesis. It could, for example, serve as a guide robot around
university campuses. In the meantime, you can find extensive documentation at Payne’s Instructables post.
CROWD PEAS-ER
Anyone who has ever seen a Black Eyed Peas performance knows that will.i.am. is
into robotics and he took on Dean Kamen — creator of the Segway — during the FIRST
2011 competition. The organization (which stands for "For Inspiration and Recognition of
Science and Technology") was founded by Kamen in 1989. Following the opening
ceremonies of championships, will.i.am and Kamen went head-to-head in a FIRST Tech
Challenge match. The FTC class of competition features smaller bots than the FIRST
Robotics Competition that is the headliner event. Kamen and will.i.am acted as honorary
coaches in the FTC exhibition, with Kamen backing team 2859 from McLean,VA, and
will.i.am behind team 3509 from Folsom, CA (nicknamed "The Dirty Bots" in his honor).
When the California team gave the singer a turn at the controls, he performed admirably, says sophomore Millun Atluir, who is
competing in his second year of FTC."He did pretty well," Atluir says."His driving blocked the opponents so we could get the
magnetic baton." Indeed, when the final buzzer sounded, will.i.am's team had defeated the competition 73-9.
DMBH AND DMBHR
A team of researchers at the Institute of System Information and Control at the
National Kaohsiung First University of Science and Technology, Taiwan, have developed
the university’s first full-scale humanoid. Nei Dau (a.k.a., Dynamic Motion Balance
Humanoid Robot, or DMBHR for short) stands 130 cm ( 4’ 3”) tall but weighs just 9. 6 kg
( 21 lbs). Despite its size, it makes use of Robotis RX64 and AX12 servos ( 24 in all) for
its 20 degrees of freedom (two legs x6, two arms x3, head x2). It has two cameras and
makes use of standard sensors to keep its balance (gyro, accelerometer, and force
sensors in the feet). The robot previously competed at RoboCup 2010, and competed
for Team Kaobotics in the Adult Size League at RoboCup 2011.
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