Well folks, this is what happens when we go away for a week: we come back to more robot videos than you can program a robot to shake a stick at. Make sure you have a comfy chair, because there's a good chance you'll be watching robot videos for the rest of the day.
The most important thing we missed last week was this:
There. You're caught up. Feel free to ignore the rest of this post.
You may have spotted Nimbro-OP in our IROS expo gallery; it's the new humanoid TeenSize open platform from the University of Bonn.
Like virtually all hobby-level humanoids of this size, Nimbo-OP is a leeeetle bit wobbly. but at least it's all smiles about it.
[ Nimbro-OP ]
Looks like somebody had some time to hit the beach at IROS:
[ Mobile Robots ]
That robotic turtle hasn't yet gotten its flippers wet, but here's some video of it pretending that's somehow very, very relaxing.
[ Naro Tartaruga ]
We love to see robotics research get commercialized, especially when really cool ideas end up available to consumers for cheap (like $80). Such is the case with this indestructible R/C helicopter, based on work from EPFL that we've been reporting on for years.
We covered Matternet last year, but this video is a great reminder of why what they're working on is so cool, and so important.
[ Matternet ]
Here's a little bit of footage of Northrop Grumman's new UGV, Titus. It has four cameras and a six DoF arm, and is apparently quite capable, although the $175,000 pricetag makes us raise an eyebrow or two.
Via [ AUVSI ]
This calligraphy robots is basically just a very fancy and complex photocopier: it records all the details of a brushstroke, and then can replay it over and over, creating endless identical versions of whatever you've taught it to draw.
Via [ Diginfo ]
Our very own robotics pro, Angelica Lim, gave a talk at TEDxKyoto "On Designing User-Friendly Robots," featuring Naoki:
[ TEDxKyoto ]
You remember Rethink Robotics' Baxter, right? Of course you do! Here it is, showing how it can work with both of its arms at the same time:
Baxter: for all your rubber ducky sorting needs.
[ Rethink Robotics ]
If that's not enough Baxter for you, we'll finish up this week with a long talk from Rodney Brooks at CMU on Baxter. This is actually the first public talk on Baxter, and if you've never heard Rod Brooks give a robotics talk before, it's definitely worth an hour of your time. It's not all about Baxer, and there's a bunch of cool little infonuggets in there, like what happens if you put a virtual wall on top of a Roomba, and why it might be a good idea. There's a Q&A session at the end, too.
[ Rethink Robotics ]
