Robotics Weekly
Issue #3
25.12.2015
Featured article:
- 14 Robotics Breakthroughs From the Past Decade - End of year is nice time for summaries of past achievements. In this article (from 2013) we have nice summary of year after year robotics achievements.
Articles and videos:
- hitchBOT - There are more and more discussions about possible dangers and risks of creating advanced robots and artificial intelligence. But is anyone considering how we, humans will interact with robots? Will we help them with their problems or will we harm them and release our hate towards them? Actually some people are considering this situations. They build simple humanoid robot and sent him on hitch hiking trip. Surprisingly people were very helpful to hitchBOT except for pretty big incident in Philadelphia.
- Dobot - Ever wanted to have industry quality robotics arm on your desktop? Check out Dobot. It is Arduino compatible, easy to program and easy to use.
- Watch These Drones Build a Rope Bridge - When I was younger I loved to watch adventure movies like Indiana Jones. There were many scenes when some adventure hunters were crossing rope bridge. Usually at the end of scene such bridges were spectacularly destroyed and no one even though how hard will it be to rebuild it. That was one of most annoying thing in those movies for me. But finally ETH Zurich researchers come with brilliant solution: why can't we build rope bridge with help of autonomous drones? The results are astonishing.
- GlaDOS as 3d printed ceiling lamp - Do you remember Wheatley from last issue of Robotics Weekly? If you like it, you definitely should check another "character" form Portal 2. This time it is even practical, because this GlaDOS can perform also like ceiling lamp.
- Robot Pro-Wrestling Dekinnoka! - Welcome in strange land of Japanese entertainment. Forget about simple box shaped sumo robots which are pushing them selfs out of dohyō. Check those videos from Dekinnoka tournaments where humanoid remote controlled robots are fighting each other. To be honest, they are rather funny than amazing but still worth watching.
- Simple Bots - List of instructables projects of very very simple robots which can be build based on toothbrush or ruler.
- Drifting Robot Car - How can simple drifting remote controlled car be upgraded? Simple, make it autonomous drifting car. And this slow motion shot was very impressive.
- RiSE V2 and V3 - Do you remember tree climbing robot from previous issue of Robotics Weekly? Boston Dynamics also have their own approach to this problem. But their solution also works on walls, so it might be slightly better approach.
Crowdfunding:
- Thimble - When I was young kid, I loved to buy Dinosaurs magazine issued on 2 week base. Apart of magazine, there were simple plastic dinosaur bones and instruction how to connect them to make one big model. I loved anticipation for new issue and parts. Now, Thimble team tries to do something similar with simple robotics education kits. It seems that they already achieved their funding goal, but it still might be worth to check them out.
Book of the week:
- Tinkering: Kids Learn by Making Stuff - Looking for tinkering ideas and projects that might be done with larger groups of kids? You should check this book. Author proposes some tinkering activities with lot of explanation and references for further "research". And apart of that he tries to distill the hows and whys of tinkering kids and give tips and tricks based oh his own experiences.
Courses:
- Robotics: Mobility - OK, so you have idea of how your robot will look and what is his purpose, but you have no idea how to make him to move? In this Coursera MOOC you will learn how to think and design robots which will move in a way that you intent to. There will be also following topics discussed: mobility in animals and robots, kinematics and dynamics of legged machines, and design of dynamical behavior via energy landscapes.
Jobs:
- Equipment Engineer, Robotics @ Tesla Motors - If you are looking for job in industrial robotics, Tesla Motors might be good choice. You still have to had a loot of experience, but I bet that you can learn something new there.
Humor:
- Happy Holidays - Well, those reindeer might not be flying yet, but who knows who will deliver presents next Christmas :).
Kudos:
Michał Neonek, MrValgad, Tompul
Appendix:
Do you have link to cool news, article, tutorial or video and want to share with other robot fans? Send it to me and if meet quality standards I will include it in next issue of Robotics Weekly.
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