ROBOTS DREAMS - Robot news and robot hacks from a true robot geek

Robot Sightings: More MANOI, Old Combat Robot Videos, Bioloid Library, and more...

What's going on today in my crazy robot world?

• 22:01 If combat robots are your thing, then get over to YouTube and check out TeamVeloicity's videos! (www.youtube.com/user/TeamVelocity)
• 22:15 The "Uncanny Valley" robot problem gets extended to other everyday objects... (tinyurl.com/other-uncanny-valley-objects) Spooky? Yes!
• 22:33 RoboBuilder has posted a module to support the Microsoft Robot Development System 2008 (tinyurl.com/robobuilder-MSRDS)
• 23:27 Trying to develop C programs to use with the Bioloid CM5? Check out this thread & new C library - tinyurl.com/bioloid-cm5-c-library
• 23:36 Good report covering the Western Japan Welfare Equipment show featuring many assistance robots. tinyurl.com/welfare-equipment-report
• 23:44 You gotta love a competition that automatically disqualifies robots if they serve any useful purpose. tinyurl.com/bakarobot-report
• 23:51 Day 2 report from the Kyosho Humanoid Cup with "Concours de elegance", sprints, and the Hall of Fame- tinyurl.com/kyosho-manoi-day2
• 01:26 Piperoids - the cute 21st century robots made out of paper pipes/straws - piperoid.jp/index.html
• 08:43 Curtis at EngineeringTV shared the best video of the Aldebaran NAO robot we have seen so far: tinyurl.com/engineeringtv-nao-robot
• 08:57 Thanks to Eloise - Hallmark has a very cool Wall-E Christmas ornament (tinyurl.com/walle-christmas). Now, if we only had a tree...
• 10:17 SketchUp has a physics plug-in (tinyurl.com/sketchup-physics) Must model humanoid robots now! (tinyurl.com/sketchup-robot)

Robotically posted for Lem by LoudTwitter

UK Robot Gathering Gains Momentum, and Feet (Video)

A small but active and extremely dedicated group of UK robot builders that connected via the RoboSavvy online forums have started to gather regularly to compete, share information, and show off their creations. The group, which includes humanoid, hexapod, and other types of robots, meets during the regular ROBOtic competitions in Birmingham.

BillB, one of the RoboSavvy hexapod fanatics was kind enough to share the video (see below) of their most recent meet-up.

Robot Servo Serial Mode Comparision

Many robot servo manufacturers sell servos that can be controlled serially, but unfortunately their implementations aren't typically well documented which makes it difficult to make design choices. However, the Aichi Institute of Technology Tetsujin Project website has a fairly detailed webpage comparing serial servo designs from Hitec, Kondo, Robotis, and Futaba. Here's the original webpage, and a Google translated version.

UK RoboSavvy Humanoid Event-Part 3 (Video)

Not only can they sprint, the UK humanoids can also get down and dirty during a Kung Fu/ROBO-ONE style match in the ring. Check out the videos below for a glimpse of the action.

UK RoboSavvy Humanoid Event-Part 2 (Video)

Here are a couple Sprint competition videos posted by Vangos253 (Papacostantis on Robosavvy):

UK RoboSavvy Humanoid Event-Part 1 (Video)

Almost instantly after we mentioned that we would like to see some photos and videos from the UK humanoid event that was held last weekend, Orac pinged us with a pointer to the files. It looks like everyone had a fantastic time.

ROBO-ONE style robotics had definitely taken hold in the UK, which is extremely encouraging. Hopefully it will motivate some of the humanoid robot kit manufacturers to take the market and customers outside of Japan seriously.

We're going to post several of the videos from the event, which was organized by active UK based members of the popular RoboSavvy robot forums. To get things off to a good start, here's a highlight video put together by OraNova (BillB).

Korean Robot Event Goes Global

Rob Farrell reports from the Korean Robot Games Festival:

"Great time had by all! Wish you were here. We met some many great people and saw and competed with some amazing robots. We will post some videos soon but we wanted to get this one picture off to you right away."

In the photo from Rob above, left to right: Team Robotica from Spain (Oriel, Toni Casas and their robot Chiquilicuatre); Farrell Robotics from the US (Chris and Rob with Oro and Zog): and the Sugiura's from Japan with Mega-Dynamizer. All of their robots are based on Robotis servos and components.

American Humanoid Robot Spotted in Japan

We were flipping through the pages of the latest issue of Robocon Magazine, trying to decide which robot articles were interesting enough to invest all the time and effort in translation. Well, to be perfectly honest, all the robot articles are all 'interesting enough', but given our poor command of Japanese kanji, the translation process can be painfully slow.

Then, we happened to glance at the Robotis Dynamixel advertisement, and one robot immediately caught our attention. ZOG! One of the RoboGames champion humanoid robots designed by Farrell Robotics.

He's in good company too - surrounded by other high performance humanoids like Dynamizer, Hajime Robot 18, the NIMBRO RoboCup team, and Gadget 2. Of course we realize that it's an ad, and that Robotis is trying to promote their products by showcasing some of the builders that use them. Still, it's quite an honor for ZOG to share the stage with some of the best humanoid robotics has to offer.

ROBO-ONE: Mega Dynamizer Close-Up

We spent a wonderful afternoon yesterday visiting with the Sugiura Family and getting briefed on Mega Dynamizer, a super-sized ROBO-ONE champion robot. Based in part on the outstanding Dynamizer humanoid robot, Mega Dynamizer is taller (50 cm), heavier (5.0 kg), and even more awesome - if that is possible.

Mega Dynamizer features 23 degrees of freedom and takes full advantage of the Dynamixel RX-64 servos and CM-2 Plus control board from Robotis (Bioloid). Control communication uses 2.4 Ghz RS232C (ZIGBEE).

The robots technology and design are extremely impressive from a specification perspective, and even more so when you see Mega Dynamizer in action as we did (see video below). If Mega Dynamizer is any indication, ROBO-ONE 13 next month is going to be the most exciting ROBO-ONE competition ever.

Kondo Rolls Out New Robot Controller Board

Here's the scenario: A few years ago we bought a Kondo KHR-1 (the original version) and took a two day class covering how to assemble, test, and program the humanoid robot. As fate would have it, we also had the opportunity to sit in on a pre-release private seminar on the RCB-3 robot controller board. The board was released for sale within about a month, and was quickly followed by the new KHR-2HV humanoid robot that used the controller board.

Now, a couple years later, Kondo has just announced a brand new controller board, the KCB-1, that looks pretty sweet, at least from the published specifications (see below). Will history repeat itself? Will Kondo release a hot new humanoid robot in the near future? It's any body's guess. We don't have any inside info on this one, but we would sure love to...