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.

Spruce Deuce gets his rhythm by using a set of arm and wrist servos, controlled by a Highly Liquid MD24 MIDI servo controller.

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While he doesn’t rock out like, say, this guy, the robot drummer is still pretty impressive in my book. Perhaps he should get together and do a concert with Toyota’s robot trumpet player and robot violin player.

[via Synthopia]

The 15 inch-tall, 6 lb. robot is called the Junimotion and it’s a kit that you have to assemble for yourself. That’s kind of cool, yet daunting. The thing is that this ‘bot costs about $4,000 (USD), so you’d better be really careful when putting it together!

This kit has a special sort of servo that requires fewer cables than most, making the whole ‘bot more structurally sound. I guess that means it can be chucked around a bit. It comes with a bunch of different connection options including ones for LEDs, audio, sensors, gyro-sensors. The whole shebang is controllable via Bluetooth, so when someone writes an app for your cell phone, you’ll be able to control it wirelessly.

Battery time isn’t that great, at only 30 minutes. Also, the price doesn’t really work for me. But hey, if you’re in the market for a kit robot  – and have $4,000 bucks to spare, you’ll probably go bonkers for Junimotion.

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[via Plastic Pals via Ubergizmo]

A series of cryptic looking numeric black on white segments are printed on vertical sliders which gradually move into position within a black masking box to reveal the current time. As time passes, the sliders climb to the top, until the 9th digit on any given position hits. After that, the mechanism disengages and drops the slider all the way back to the zero position. Each slider is pushed and pulled through the device by a set of 3 servos driven by a PIC16F628 microcontroller.

Check out the video clip below to see this amazing clock movement in action:

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Duncan – can I please have one of these in my living room?

[Digimech via NOTCOT]

The HPI GR-001 G-Robot features 20 motors that can be programmed to follow your every command. In addition to the included PS2-like controller, you can also direct the G-Robot using your computer and the included animation software.

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Keep in mind that the GR-100 is a kit, and requires about two hours of assembly time. The photo below gives you a pretty good idea of what you’re in store for before you plunk down your hard-earned dough. Oh yeah, the instructions are in Japanese, so that’ll add to the challenge.

If you’ve got a spare $2400 lying around with nothing better to do, you can order one from gadget importer AudioCubes.

The humanoid ‘bot comes “ready to walk,” which means you won’t have to spend hours putting together the intricate servos and wiring that might have to with other hobby robots.

The 13-inch tall robot has over 20 individual servos for controlling the head, legs, arms, and other joints, so can be programmed to do some pretty complex moves.

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You can choose to program movements with your PC, or with the included multi-function wireless remote.

The $499 RoboPhilo is available just in time for the holidays from the RoboBrothers online shop.

[via Robots-Dreams]

With a few bucks worth of off the shelf parts, an Arduino board, a USB cable and a little code, you too can have one for your website, thanks to this detailed “how-to” article over on Tinkerlog.

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While I think the idea is really clever, I think you’d end up throwing the thing against the wall if you have even a mildly popular website. But if you just have a personal blog, or only want to monitor a single page, it could be gratifying to hear the little bell ring every time a visitor pops by.

Ding!

[via MAKE]

The $119 RoboDS is an open robotics platform for the Nintendo DS, designed to let you remotely control your robot through the DS’ brains and on-board Wi-Fi connection.

The system includes a wheeled base that can be driven via remote control, and can be extended through the connection of additional serial devices. The platform lets you securely mount your DS, provides rechargeable power for the robotics, and connects to a special card called the DSerial² which lets you control devices with your DS.

In order to use the RoboDS, you’ll need the DSerial² card ($45,) as well as the hardware to run homebrew code on your DS, all of which is available from natrium42′s online shop. If you want to check out the RoboDS in action, you can actually remotely control the original prototype here.