･DARwIn-LC Virginia Tech’s RoMeLa unveiled a cute new robot at RoboCup 2010 in Singapore. It’s called DARwIn-LC (Low Cost) and was featured on a poster near the Robotis Bioloid booth with the headline “Open Platform Humanoid Robot”. It sports 20 degrees of freedom actuated by Robotis AX-18F (18kg/cm torque) servos. Thanks to an NSF grant, the robot will be manufactured along with its sibling, DARwIn-HP (High Performance), to be distributed to 11 of Virginia Tech’s partner universities, and may even be available through Robotis itself. Video (Mirror): I think they really nailed the design of this one. [source: I, Bioloid] Update June 30th 2010: Dr. We want to form a community of DARwIn-LC users to share new ideas for improvement, hack it, etc. and use the robot for research, education, outreach, and of course, an easy entry point for the RoboCup humanoid division. Media: Image credit:Tan Junming Clarence
jherrm/scanbooth Aldebaran Launches NAO Next Gen Aldebaran Robotics has launched NAO Next Gen, a new version of a robot used by universities around the world. Aside from some new colors, NAO Next Gen doesn’t look any different from the previous version, but boasts upgraded performance in key areas. The new 1.6GHz Intel processor can handle two HD video streams simultaneously, allowing it to recognize objects and faces faster. New speech recognition software (called Nuance) can sift out the most important words in a spoken sentence to produce more accurate responses. And the company has optimized NAO’s walking gait, which increases its speed dramatically. Other features include smart torque control and self-collision avoidance. Video : We’re not sure how this will affect existing NAO developers. The upgraded performance is nice, but after several years of development and increasing competition from the likes of the Robotis DARwIn-OP , we expected a new version to be a more dramatic overhaul. [source: Aldebaran Robotics ]
Introducing ScanBooth | Jeremy Herrman Kids getting 3D scanned at the Pittsburgh Mini Maker Faire 2012. © Larry Rippel At the 2012 Pittsburgh Mini Maker Faire, I ran a booth where people could get 3D scanned and take home a small printout of themselves. After an intense 7 hours, we scanned over 90 people and printed out over 40 of them. Going from raw 3D scan to a printable miniature figurine requires a surprising number of steps. Raw 3D scans have holes, extra geometry and artifacts that all need to be dealt with before sending to the printer. In fact, when I first started scanning people back in March, it took me over an hour to manually clean up a scan so that it was able to be printed out. ScanBooth is a collection of software for running a 3D photo booth. Here’s what ScanBooth has to offer: We had a fantastic time showing people the power of 3D scanning and printing at Pittsburgh Mini Maker Faire. Carlos Armengol and his son check out their souvenir from ScanBooth at Pittsburgh Mini Maker Faire 2012. © Larry Rippel
L’avenir de la programmation (2/6) : La programmation pour les non-programmeurs Par Rémi Sussan le 24/05/11 | 10 commentaires | 13,345 lectures | Impression Programmer, c’est difficile : penser logiquement, par étapes, sans en sauter aucune et en envisageant toutes les possibilités de ses actions demande une grande attention, une grande rigueur. Mais à ces complications s’ajoute encore l’apprentissage d’une syntaxe extrêmement ardue, qui ne supporte pas la moindre faute, à la virgule près. Sans compter que ladite syntaxe nous prend à rebrousse-poil. Un autre obstacle, peut-être moins évident, est l’absence de résultats immédiatement gratifiants pour les débutants. Les langages visuels L’une des premières tâches de simplification consisterait donc à mettre au point des langages sans possibles erreurs de syntaxe. Un des produits phares du genre, Alice, élaboré à l’université de Carnegie Mellon, permet de créer très rapidement des petits films interactifs en 3D. Les enfants du Smalltalk Kay ne renonça pas pour autant à faire du Smalltalk un langage “pour tous”.
D I M E N S I O N E X T | NEW BLOG @ reaDIYmate Wired editor Chris Anderson leaves magazine world to run robotics company Wired editor Chris Anderson is leaving the magazine after 11 years as its editor-in-chief to run a robotics company he founded, 3D Robotics. Anderson made the announcement at an all-hands meeting for Wired staffers in San Francisco today. 3D Robotics has a Facebook page, Twitter account, and domain name (3drobotics.com), but currently no website. Currently, that URL redirects to DIY Drones, another company Anderson founded, which sells kits and parts for people making their own unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) — robotic aircraft, essentially. It appears that 3D Robotics is an outgrowth of that company. In addition to running Wired and turning it from a niche magazine with insider geek appeal into a mainstream tech-culture powerhouse, Anderson also wrote several influential books, including The Long Tail and Free: The Future of a Radical Price. The new company is a robot manufacturing company with factories in San Diego, California and Bangkok, Thailand. Photo credit: Christina Bonnington
SkyCall quadcopter by MIT Senseable City Lab Researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology have built a flying robot that can guide people around complex urban environments or aid search-and-rescue missions, in an attempt to show that drones can perform useful tasks as well as sinister ones (+ movie). The SkyCall quadcopter, designed by research group Senseable City Lab at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, acts like an electronic flying guide dog, hovering just ahead of the user and guiding them to their destination. Yaniv Jacob Turgeman, research and development lead at Senseable City Lab, said SkyCall was designed to counter the sinister reputation of drones, and show they can be useful. "Our imaginations of flying sentient vehicles are filled with dystopian notions of surveillance and control, but this technology should be tasked with optimism," he told Dezeen. A prototype of the SkyCall quadcopter has already been used on test missions to guide students around the MIT campus in Cambridge, USA. Development Future
Making Business Sense of 3D Printing – Accenture Any company with a supply chain or a storefront should keep close tabs on this burgeoning technology. Why? Because there are significant business opportunities if companies consider how 3D printing could facilitate mass customization, unlock new revenue streams through on-demand production and extend support for the long tail for products or parts that consumers buy in low volumes. The true opportunity of 3D printing is the ability for companies to produce a wide range of objects on demand, with little or no inventory costs. In short, 3D printing looks like an exciting business prospect for many industries, including automotive, electronics, industrial products and consumer goods manufacturers, as well as retailers and other organizations that depend on a supply chain.