The case was made by bit-tech forum member WEHR-WOLF. He doesn’t have a name for his mod, nor did he talk about the specs or how exactly he went about making it or if he really is a werewolf. He only said that he made it from “parts of machines and tools” with a little help from “a liter of vodka.” Lucky bastard. A little help from vodka gives me vomit and regret, not a robot with a gatling gun for an arm.

Cover your PC’s eyes and head to bit-tech forums for more pictures.

[via Damn Geeky via Reddit]

SHOAL’s robotic fish can also help with underwater security, diver monitoring, and search and rescue efforts. Each of the fish is about 5 feet long and has a fin on the back that moves back and forth to propel it just as a natural fish would move. Each of the robot fish costs $31,600(USD) and packs in numerous sensors to pick up common pollutants.

The fish are able to swim without any input and send data back to the shore station up to half a mile away. The fish use artificial intelligence software to avoid obstacles, map their location, and return to base when the battery packs run low. The battery packs are good for about eight hours per charge. The reason the robot is designed to look like a fish is so it will blend into the environment, and can also maintain a small turning radius.

[via MSNBC]

With robots being able to microwave frozen foods, lazy people like me have absolutely nothing left to do for ourselves – other than to buy robots.

[via IEEE Spectrum]

So now we have a robot bird that can perch on a hand. Are we in for a future full of Kings and Lords who practice falconry with robot versions as they laugh and proclaim it all to be jolly good? Well, not really. The ultimate goal for these robot birds is for surveillance.

[via Ubergizmo]

The Clothbot was designed by a team from the Chinese Academy of Science, and it uses a special set of gripper wheels to help it ascend textiles. The tiny robot weighs just under 5 ounces, but is incredibly adept at handling the challenging surface of fabric. In the demo video below, we see Clothbot climbing a shirt, and then pair of pants:

Why, you may ask, would you need a robot that can climb your pants? Its creators think that the Clothbot could be the foundation for small robotic pets that could climb on us, or the slightly more ridiculous idea of a robotic cellphone which could saddle itself on your shoulder to free your hands – guess they never heard of a Bluetooth headset. They also suggest the idea of robotic “body inspection.” Um, no thanks. On the other hand, tiny robot pets that climb on us sound kind of fun – at least until Skynet gets a hold of them.

[via IEEE Spectrum]

That computer is almost 30 years old. If not for this mod, it would be a useless paperweight. It is proof that by thinking out of the box, we can use some of our old gadgets and rescue them from obsolescence, while doing some cool things.

[via Hack A Day via Geekosystem]

The researchers say that it will all be possible by 2045. So, who will be first?

[via Plastic Pals via Engadget]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pegy1ZjDO8I#!

The motion is a bit eerie (but awesome!) and makes you look to the sky to see if Skynet is orbiting above your house. This is the eighth revision of the Transformer robot, so it’s clear that Kenji has been working on perfecting it for years.

[via Plastic Pals via Geek]

Think of it like those paintings where the eyes watch your every move and follow you. It’s like that, but better/creepier. You may very well have nightmares after you watch it watching you.

[via Engadget via Geeky-Gadgets]

Still not impressed? What if I told you that it can wave its arms and move its head? No? What if I told you that it has wheels but can also walk? No? What if I show you all those things I just said?

Kreuger estimates that the toy will sell for $150-$200(USD) if it becomes a real product. That’s a big if; as per Cuusoo rules, gathering the required 10,000 votes is no guarantee that LEGO will make it a real product, just that they will consider the possibility. But a true Section 9 operative never gives up, so go to LEGO Cuusoo and vote for the Tachikoma – and tell your friends to do the same. I bet if LEGO includes a Laughing Man sticker with every toy it will sell like crazy.

[via The Brothers Brick]

The Russian robot has no legs, just like R2, and is designed to connect to a crane operated on the space station. SAR-400 would be remotely operated by the controller wearing a head mounted display, jacket, and gloves that would relay the movements directly to the robot’s body. One of the most interesting things is that the Russian robot has tactile feedback.

The gloves that operator wears will squeeze the hands to allow them to feel the tool the robot is using in their hand remotely. That same feedback sensation can also alert the operator if the robot’s hand becomes stuck while working outside the space station. I have to wonder if there’s some R2 tech in the SAR-400, given the similarities between the two robots.

[via PlasticPals]

The big tentacles in front of the cephalopod are actuated by a shape-memory alloy that changes length when heated, without the aid of servos or anything else. The other six arms are silicone with a steel cable inside. The cable is attached to a series of other nylon cables. By manipulating those nylon cables, the tentacle can wiggle and even grip things. Hopefully not human throats.

The seas of the future are looking like a dangerous place. I raise a toast to our new robo-tentacled overlords and laugh at them since I am sticking to solid ground. Let them eat the sailors.

[via IEEE Spectrum]

Designed by Jeff Kessler, TJ* is an animatronic puppet you can easily control. TJ*’s mechanical eyes can move up, down, left and right, and his mouth can move open and closed too. The mechanical puppet is controlled using a programmable Arduino circuit, so you can make it do whatever you want.

TJ* is made from laser-cut MDF wood and three drive servos, and can also be covered with a paper “skin” so you don’t have to stare at his skull if you don’t want (though I think it looks cool that way.) Jeff is also working on an upgrade which will let you add LED eyeballs to TJ*. Now all we need is a metal skin, and we’ll have our own desktop Terminators!

Pricing for TJ* starts at just $50(USD) if you already have an Arduino, and at $120 for a complete system with the Arduino Uno controller and puppeteer’s joystick. For $10 extra, you can request a plastic version of TJ* instead of MDF. Drop on over to Kickstarter and get your pledge in by this Saturday April 14th, if you want to get in on the action. Jeff expects to start shipping out the first batch of TJ* robots this June. Down the road, he’ll also be releasing an upgraded ($200) version of TJ* with the ability to move the corners of his mouth and his brow up and down.

DARPA plans on releasing a modified version of these robots as a platform for those participating in the Robotics Challenge but are using the government-funded equipment option. It’s expected that the final version of the platform robot will be a complete humanoid, with two arms, two legs, a torso, and a head. But even without all of those body parts, the robots shown in this clip are damned impressive.

Those slow-mo sound effects of the climbing ‘bot are going to give me nightmares. Still, it’s pretty amazing to see that we’re on the verge of full-size humanoid robots that can walk, climb and even perform exercises just like us. I also like that these robots are wearing shoes. Now, drop and give me 20, PETMAN!

DARPA is offering tens of millions of dollars in funding to teams anywhere in the world that are willing to build robots capable of performing the complicated tasks the challenge offers. The winner of the contest will get $2 million in cash. As I mentioned before, the robots have to be able to complete a series of complicated steps simulating a robot helping in the event of an industrial disaster. The robot has to be able to open doors, walk through rubble-strewn walls, and turn valves in addition other tasks.

The program is looking to develop the robotics hardware itself and open-source software simulations as well. The official goal of the contest according to DARPA is to “develop ground robotic capabilities to execute complex tasks in dangerous, degraded, human-engineered environments.” Key robotic technologies the program aims to advance include “supervised autonomy, mounted mobility, dismounted mobility, dexterity, strength, and platform endurance.”

The program has two phases in the competitive challenge. The first phase spans 15 months ranging from October 1, 2012 to December 31, 2013, while the second phase will last for 12 months kicking off January 1, 2014 to December 31, 2014. The cash purse will be awarded to the winner at the end of the second challenge. There are a variety of Tracks running during the program, with a handful of participants being selected for up to $3 million in funding, while other Tracks will receive smaller amounts of funding for development of software only, or those who wish to fund their own entries. Teams without hardware may be able to leverage a DARPA-provided platform robot but will still have to develop the control software to put the robot through its paces.

DARPA plans on holding an online Proposers’ Day workshop on April 16th to provide more info for potential participants, and you can find out more specifics on the Robotics Challenge here.

[via IEEE Spectrum]

The Suzomo SVR line of SushiBots can crank out up to 280 to 400 rolls of norimaki in an hour, taking ingredients and rolling out a perfect square roll.

As you can see in the video clips, it’s not like it can do all of the slicing and precision knife-work that a qualified sushi chef can pull off, but it can take care of laying out the rice and the precise rolling part. In addition to the norimaki machine, Suzomo offers the TRS-FMA robot, which can crank out up to 3300 pieces of shari sushi rice every hour:

From the looks of things, Suzomo offers quite a range of robotic systems for mass-production of sushi. Would you eat sushi that came from a robot, or do you require that humans prepare all your food?

[Gigazine[JP] and Gizmodo via Geeky Gadgets]

The contest will apparently focus towards bipedal designs that are able to navigate rough terrain and can be used for helping during industrial disasters. The robot will have to be able to navigate through a very specific set of obstacles. To start, the robot will have to be able to maneuver itself into, and  then drive an open-frame vehicle such as a tractor to a building.

Once at the building the robot will have to get off the tractor, walk to a locked door, and unlock the door with the key. Once unlocked, the robot will have to move through the door and down a hall strewn with rubble and climb a ladder at the end of the hall. After reaching the top of the ladder, the robot will have to be able to turn off a simulated leaking pipe by turning a valve nearby and then replace a faulty pump to complete the exercise.

It’s not 100% clear if the robot will need to do all of these tasks back-to-back. Regardless, it all sounds incredibly complicated for robot that is supposed to be able to do all this with very little human interaction, other than a remote operator. DARPA also plans on controlling the communication layer, which may increase the need for robotic autonomy.

The guys at Robotics blog Hizook have much more to say on the topic, and think that Boston Dynamics’ PETMAN (shown in the video above) is a likely  candidate platform for the bipedal robot to be used.

[via Hizook]

This little dude was created by Instructables tech editor Randy Sarafan, and has the best legs ever for a simple robot – each one made from a kitchen spatula, and held together with zip-ties. These give it solid footing and balance. The robot was built using a handful of household parts and electronics you can mostly find at Radio Shack. It’s brains are Arduino based, so it can be programmed to do different moves than the wobbly walk shown in the video here:

Perhaps the best thing about the spatula ‘bot is that Randy has posted detailed build instructions over on Instructables, so you can make your own kitchen-dwelling robot if you have just a little bit of the DIY chromosome in your gene pool. Me, I think I’m building one to make me whipped cream on command.

The idea is that their work on ECCEROBOT could help advance AI research and help them figure out how to get the brain to control the body in various ways, which is quite a challenge.

[BBC via TheDailyWhat via Neatorama]

Its builder currently has his eye on winning the Boca Bearings 2012 Innovation Competition with this ‘bot. That would win him $10,000, which would go a long way toward improving upon this already awesome robot.

[via Geek]