Brainlink is a little piece of hardware that can augment (or replace) the brain that’s currently powering your robot. Yes, your robot. Any robot at all, pretty much, as long as it’s controllable with an IR remote or a serial connector or some other common type of interface. Brainlink itself (the plastic triangle thingy in the above pic) talks to your Android phone (or a computer) via Bluetooth, enabling programming and wireless control of whatever it’s attached to.
The US First Robotics Competition (FRC) is about to start it’s 2012 season. This Saturday (Jan 7) teams from all over the region will be gathering at the University of Memphis to participate in Kick Off were they will see this years game for the first time and get their kit of parts to build their robots. 18 teams will be participating in the Memphis Kick off (one of 74 locations).
I will be their (I am actually hosting the event) so I will get pictures and news from the event. Most of the news will be posted on http://memphisfirstteams.org/.
We have 9 teams in Memphis! If you read this blog often, and would like to get involved with a US First Team as a Mentor or a sponsor, please email me at dekohn@memphis.edu and I will be glad to get you involved! The teams really need help from people with technical knowledge (robotics, mechanics, programming (especially LabVIEW), electrical / electronics, CAD and networking).
The following Saturday (Jan 14) Herff College of Engineering (also at UofM) will be hosting a Quick Build for the teams in Memphis to help them get their bots started (basic drive train, base, control system). Again I will post pictures of this event here or on the website mentioned above.
Most of the teams in Memphis will be going to the Smoky Mountain Regional that will be held at the Knoxville Convention Center on March 1-3, 2012 (I’ll be there too!)
Sorry I haven’t been posting in so long. Just been very busy and now that the University of Memphis is on break, I have time to work on some entries.
Stay tuned for info on the 1st Memphis First Lego League competition, news on US First Robotics (who’s season starts Jan 7 with Kick off) and some stuff I have been saving up to post and just haven’t had the time.
On Oct 22, 19 Scouts from Farmington Presbyterian Church, Troop 368 came to the University of Memphis for a Robotics Merit Badge Day!
Robotics Merit Badge, just added to by Boy Scouts of America this year, has scouts learn about various aspects of robotics as well as requires them to build and program their own robot.
For more information on Robotics Merit Badge click HERE
The event was set up by the Department of Engineering Technology at the University of Memphis and the University of Memphis Student Chapter of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineering (IEEE).
Last week, Aldebaran Robotics was at the University of Memphis at the FedEx Institute demonstrating their NAO Robot. I found out about it because one of my students went there to eat lunch and saw it. I wish I would have known earlier to let everyone know he was coming, because it is an impressive little robot.
A humanoid robot about 2 foot high, 25 Degrees of freedom (ie joint movements), 2 cameras and a bunch of other sensors. It is programmable via a graphical programming language, a text based language, or by just manually moving the robot (and it will mimic those moves).
For the $6,000 -> $9,000 price tag, it was very impressive considering that only a few years ago similar robots would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. I particularly enjoyed its dancing:
Currently the robot is only being sold to educational institutions, but I think that they are getting it out there to researchers to help develop routines and programs and hopefully they will open it up to the consumer market in the future.
