Both Christian Brothers University and the University of Memphis are sending teams to this weekends IEEE SouthEastCon in Concord, NC to compete in the region’s Hardware Competition This year’s contest is to build an autonomous solar powered robot to run an obstacle course.
I will be attending as the Faculty Advisor for the UofM team and hope to put up pictures from the event (depending on internet availability).
To celebrate their 10th birthday, GoRobotics is giving away $250 in prizes. Go to their website for details, but hurry, the give away ends on March 31!
1st Place Prize – Orangutan B-328 Robot Controller (donated by Pololu), 2x 24V 195 RPM Gear Motors (donated by Super Droid Robots), and The LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT Idea Book (donated by No Starch Press) – worth $100
2nd Place Prize – Arduino Duemilanove, Tamiya Gear Box and Sport Tires (donated by Zagros Robotics), and The Unofficial LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT Inventor’s Guide (donated by No Starch Press) – worth $75
3rd Place Prize – Herbie the Mousebot Kit (donated by Solarbotics), and LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT Thinking Robots (donated by No Starch Press) – worth $75
Just saw the first trailer for “TRON Legacy” which will come out in Dec 2010.
If you are not as old as me, you might not remember the original TRON which came out in 1982 and was the first movie to use extensive computer graphics. Although very cheesy by today’s standards, this lead to the computer graphics used in almost every movie produced today.
Did you know that April 10-18 is National Robotics week!
See the ofical website to find events and get further information.
Found one of their sponsors of particular interest. ARTSI (Advancing Robotics Technology for Societal Impact) Alliance) is a “a collaborative education and research project centered around robotics for healthcare, the arts, and entrepreneurship” aimed at minority students.
We just found a new friend. Kojiro, a humanoid being built by the University of Tokyo’s JSK Robotics Laboratory, has a detailed musculoskeletal system built to mimic the human body. It works on a system of artificial bones, muscles and tendons to create a robot that is theoretically more light and agile than your regular bot, and which moves in a more organic fashion to our untrained eyes. The bot has motors which pull cables that simulate the method which muscles and tendons interact, and has about 100 tendon-muscle structures, giving it 60 degrees of freedom — more than an average rotary joint bot like Asimo (34 degrees, last time we checked). The robot shaves weight with its lighter, plastic materials and small brushless motors. The idea is to make a robot that’s more people friendly by not being substantially heavier or more rigid than a human it might come into contact with. Of course, that’s not the only perk of a bot built like this: the human-style flexible and twistable spine gives Kojiro all sorts of abilities that your regular bot is just too straight-spined for. Like the limbo, for instance. The big difficulty here is that all the motion and flexibility means Kojiro is a big chore to program, and there’s an army of gyros, accelerometers and force sensors embedded throughout the bot to help it learn its balance. Currently they’re working with an iterative learning process to get small motions down until Kojiro can eventually manage more complex motions like sitting motionless at a desk for nine hours on a Saturday, tending to FarmVille. Check out a video of Kojiro in limited action after the break.
To the Fairley High School Robotics Team (High Tech Hounds). The team
recently competed in the Peachtree Regional in Atlanta, Ga, where they won
the Highest Rookie Seed Award. For a first year team, this is awesome.
To the Bluff City Bots for their impressive showing at the Bayou Regional
in Westwego, La. The team finished 23rd out of 36 teams. Let’s wish them
luck as they prepare to compete in Minneapolis, MN at the 10,000 Lakes
Regional along with Team Grizzlies from the Grizzlies Academy and Team
Cordova from Cordova High School.
This years contest has autonomous solar powered robots going around a track with three obstacles (Height Obstacle, Width Obstacle and a Ramp Obstacle). Points will be awarded for the number of times around the track as well as each obstacle navigated within three minutes (starting with NO stored energy).
Teams from colleges and universities from all over the south eastern US as well as Jamaica compete in this event.
Along with CBU, the University of Memphis will also be representing Memphis at the event (pictures of their robot will be posted shortly).
