Defiance of Science » robotics

Robotic Arm Controlled by monkey Will Soon Beat You at Arm Wrestling

Glucid — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 16:14:07 +0000

Dr. Andrew Schwartz at the University of Pittsburgh implanted sensors into the brain of a monkey and allowed it to move a robotic arm to feed itself. That arm in 2008 had 4 degrees of freedom and many more degrees of terrifying. It used the arm as shown below to feed itself marshmallows and chunks of fruit. One day when the researcher in the video runs out of marshmallows I imagine a super powered mech/monkey chasing me down the street throwing poo at high velocities and doing shakedowns on elementary school children looking for marshmallows with dire consequences for coming up dry.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxIgdOlT2cY

This year, however, a newer arm with sensors located deep within the monkey’s brain, specifically the hand area and the other in the monkey’s motor cortex allowed the monkey to control a robotic arm with 7 points of articulation. In the video below the monkey is trained to use the arm to touch a knob to be rewarded with a sip of juice from a straw in its mouth. They might as well be training it to punch a picture of a face to be rewarded with Jack Daniels.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZn46l7uEKg

Researchers one day hope this will advance prosthetic techology by allowing the brain to directly control a device. Or at least create Monkeys that can tear you in half.

via:[physorg]

When will the Robots stop! Tosy Topio the Ping Pong Playing Robot

Glucid — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 16:50:08 +0000

Most of the time when there’s an article about a robot playing a sport such as TOSY TOPIO!!! it usually amazes and destroys its opponents with a cool calculated and heartless demeaner that we have come to expect of robots. TOSY TOPIO!! has managed to be both appear incredibly impressive and suck at the one thing it was designed for!

Tosy Topio was hear saying: "I should be building cars right now!!"

Tosy Robotics is a Vietnamese robot manufacturing company with the slogan “FUTURE ROBOT” all in caps by the way. The impressiveness soon fades when you see it attempt to hit a ball. I might as well be duck taping a ping pong paddle to a dogs tail and making the dog sit on the edge of a ping pong table while I show it pictures of cats covered in peanut butter.

watch the fail below!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqQ-_eJ3AsQ

ROPID, cute until he starts chasing you screaming

Glucid — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 18:23:16 +0000

: like megaman, but creepier

ROPID is another human looking robot developed by Tomotaka Takahashi. Robots always seem like a great idea until they start chasing you. We are FINALLY one step closer to allowing them to chase after you. next on the docket is getting them to scream while chasing you. Oh and did I mention it can jump?

Kyoto University’s robot venture, said CEO Tomotaka Takahashi of Robo Garage, Inc. is a small humanoid robot that can run or jump or “Lopid (ROPID)” announced that it has developed, and conducted a press conference. Realized in 2007 a patent was filed based on technology through the years, Kyoto University. (source: translated from japanese)

Check out the insanity here!