ROBO-ONE Humanoid Helper Robot Project: THKR-4 Parties! (Video)
THKR-4 may look more 'robotic' than some of the other entries in the ROBO-ONE Humanoid Helper Robot Project, but that doesn't detract a whit from it's ability to perform useful domestic tasks like greeting guests, opening the refrigerator, serving drinks, popping party poppers to celebrate, and giving a shoulder massage:
The surprising thing about THKR-4 is that it was built completely from off-the-shelf parts with very little modification. It's evolved quite a bit over the past 18 months or so as the robot's developer accumulated valuable knowledge and experience from events like this as well as real world trial runs.
Here's longer close-up view of THKR-4's full demonstration seen from the ROBO-ONE audience projector screen thanks to andonoblog:
ROBO-ONE Humanoid Helper Robot Project Shows Practical Results (Video)
The ROBO-ONE initiative usually draws a lot of attention because of it's robot battles in the ring. After all, who wouldn't be excited by a couple of robotic humanoids trying to knock each other out, sometimes completely out of the ring. But, the movement is much more than just entertainment. The organizers and participants, some of whom are top design engineers in their day jobs, are also dedicated to applying robotics to public service applications. They are strong believers in the concept that humanoid robots will eventually play a critical role by assisting seniors, enhancing medical care, teaching children and people of any age, preparing and serving meals, and much more.
This weekend, a group of ROBO-ONE robot builders gathered at the 3rd Humanoid Helper Robot Project event in Yokohama to test their creations in a real-world home environment doing practical tasks. Considering the fact that these are essentially hobbyists funding their work out of their own pockets, the results were extremely encouraging. These are not major universities or research facilities with major backing or government funding. This is totally a grass-roots initiative.
Here's a good example: Doka Harumi demonstrating a few of the useful tasks it can already perform.
Doka Harumi has an operator located in another part of the building that can only sense what the robot sees and hears via sensors on the robots body. As the project progresses, more and more autonomous control will be implemented in the robot itself.
Onimaru-5 in training for ROBO-ONE 19 (Video)
The Spring ROBO-ONE competition will be here before you know it. It's hard to believe that the upcoming event will be the 19th ROBO-ONE. It's scheduled for March 19th and 20th, in Kawasaki, and this time the format has changed slightly.
On the first day, in lieu of the more traditional, and time consuming, 2 minute autonomous demonstrations, the organizers have decided to substitute a simple 9 meter foot race. Robots that veer off course, or take longer than 1 minute to finish, will be automatically disqualified. The fastest 32 robots, including the winners in today's Lightweight Division footrace, will come back on the second day of the competition to battle in the ring.
One robot that we think stands an outstanding chance of qualifiing is Onimaru-5. Onimaru, developed by Yamaguchi-san in Kochi features champion class performance, though he has experienced some bad luck during qualifying rounds for the past few ROBO-ONE competitions. This time around, since the qualification is based purely on running ability and speed, he has a much better shot at making it into the top 32 robots. Here's a look at his most recent performance:
Taylor Veltrop: Willow Garage ROS + XBox Kinect = Robot Master/Slave Control (Video)
Taylor Veltrop, pretty much working on his own in a suburb of Tokyo, has accomplished very professional and noteworthy work in humanoid robotics including integrating the Willow Garage ROS system and the Roboard with a Kondo KHR-1HV; publishing detailed information enabling others to replicate and improve on his work in an Open Source fashion; and making tons of previously obscure information, like Kondo UART configurations, clear and easy to understand and work with. If that wasn't enough, he's also a high level LEGO Mindstorms robot designer, and recently qualified as an official participant in the Aldebaran NAO Robot Developer Program.
We caught up with Taylor at the ROBO-ONE Humanoid Helper Robot Project event on Saturday and asked him about his latest project implementing the Willow Garage ROS system with Kinect to act as a Master/Slave control for his humanoid robot:
ROBO-ONE Lightweight Division Final: Hammerhead vs. Lucanus
In conjunction with the ROBO-ONE Humanoid Helper Project (more on that later) held this weekend, the organizers staged a Lightweight Division humanoid robot battle competition. The intent was to show of a different aspect of robot design, especially the speed, power, and pure fun generated by involvement with robotics. And, since the event took place at a major new home promotion center in Yokohama, they wanted to expose a wider group of potential players, especially young families, their parents, and children.
The robot battles were definitely first-class, among the best fights that we've seen in the Lightweight Division. Here's the final match between Hammerhead and Lucanus:
Hammerhead seems perfectly designed for battle in the ring. The center of gravity has been deliberately kept low; the stance is wide with extremely strong and stable legs; the robot has a long reach and is equipped with grippers to grab and topple its opponents; and every unnecessary component, including the traditional useless in battle servo head, has been completely eliminated. It's really a sweet design.
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