Tag: robotics

Disabled Avatars

In December of 2018 I visited a temporary robot cafe, but it’s not the type of Japanese robot cafe that comes to mind to most. Rather than a robotic show, this was a cafe where the robot waiters were in fact avatars for people with disabilities, who remotely controlled them from their homes.

Optimal standing around

Robots, take note: When working in tight, crowded spaces, fire ants know how to avoid too many cooks in the kitchen. Observations of fire ants digging an underground nest reveal that a few industrious ants do most of the work while others dawdle. Computer simulations confirm that, while this strategy may not be the fairest, it is the most efficient because it helps reduce overcrowding in tunnels that would gum up the works.

the construction industry figured this out long ago.

Miso Robotics

Flippy is the world’s first autonomous robotic kitchen assistant that can learn from its surroundings and acquire new skills over time. Flippy is portable, collaborative, adaptable + designed for working kitchens. Flippy is designed to operate in an existing commercial kitchen layout and serve along with kitchen staff to safely and efficiently complete cooking tasks.

Cheetah Robot

MIT’s Cheetah 3 robot — an upgrade to the Cheetah 2, can now leap and gallop across rough terrain, climb a staircase littered with debris, and quickly recover its balance when suddenly yanked or shoved — all while essentially blind. The 40 kg robot is intentionally designed to do all this without relying on cameras or any external environmental sensors. The idea is to allow it to “feel” its way through its surroundings via “blind locomotion,” (like making your way across a pitch-black room), eliminating visual distractions, which would slow the robot down.

Saildrones

Saildrone’s investors are taking a longer view, and that a global database of the oceans will benefit the company’s future more than chasing whatever business it can book today. “The most important asset is the data, and getting data that no one else can accumulate”. Still, Jenkins has been paired with Chief Operating Officer Sebastien de Halleux, who has a long track record of turning startups into big businesses. It’s de Halleux who convinced Jenkins that money could be made from understanding the weather. “Sebastien will keep it tethered, while Richard does his thing as a creative genius”. Saildrone plans to sell data to all comers, building a software platform that almost anyone can tap, and to go after commercial work, particularly with fisheries and logistics companies. Later this year, possibly by August, they plan to revive the goal of replicating Magellan’s voyage with a couple of saildrones. In order to make the circumnavigation official with the World Sailing Speed Record Council, the drones must start out in the Northern Hemisphere, cross every longitude line, and cross the equator twice. “We’ll fulfill all of our contracts first, and as soon as there is a boat available, we’ll set them off. It’s all about priorities, right?”

2023-03-11: Semi-autonomous ocean mapping

The Saildrone SD 1200 uncrewed surface vessel has successfully surveyed more than 45k km2 of previously unmapped ocean floor around the Aleutian Islands in Alaska and a region off the Californian coast. An Environmental Sample Processor went along for the trip too – gathering environmental DNA.

Easy robotics

if you’ve ever wanted to dabble in robotics or motion control, but have been daunted by control theory and arcane driver protocols (like I’ve been), check out the IQ Position Module. They are crowdfunding now at CrowdSupply. I backed their campaign to reserve a few more Position Modules for my lab – by wrapping a smart computer around a dumb motor, they’ve created a widget that lets me go from code to physical position and back with a minimal amount of wiring and an accessible API.