This is going to be a very busy year for robotics in Memphis:
First Lego League (for students ages 9-14) just announced their competition for the year. This year’s theme is “Senior Solutions“. I know their are many teams forming in the Memphis Area, especially since we now have a competition in Memphis. The competition will take place at the University of Memphis on Dec 8, 2012. For more info on the event goto: . If you are interested in starting a team contact Frank Niedzwiedz at FrankN@rnsystemsdesign.com.
First Tech Challenge‘s kick off is this Saturday. The closest kick off event is hosted by the University of Mississippi. As far as I know, this is the first year Memphis has teams competing in FTC.
As for First Robotics Competition (FRC), there might be as many as 11 teams in Memphis this year. The University of Memphis will again host a Kick Off Event and other activities associated with FRC. For more info please see: http://memphisfirstteams.org/.
Still looking for teams in Memphis that will be competing in B.E.S.T. this year (so if you know of a team, please let me know).
Robots are already stronger than humans, able to lift thousands of pounds at a time. In many ways, they’re smarter than people, too; machines can perform millions of calculations per second, and even beat us at chess. But we could at least take solace in the fact that we could still outrun our brawny, genius robot overlords if we needed to.
Until now, that is. A four-legged robot, funded by the Pentagon, has just run 28.3 miles per hour. That’s faster than the fastest man’s fastest time ever. Oh well, ruling the planet was fun while it lasted.
The world record for the 100 meter dash was set in 2009 by sprinter Usain Bolt, who averaged 23.35 mph during his run for a time of 9.58 seconds. Over one 20-meter stretch, he managed to get up to 27.78 mph. It was a pretty impressive feat.
The Cheetah — a quadrupedal machine built by master roboteers Boston Dynamics and backed by Darpa, the Defense Department’s far-out research division — not only topped Bolt’s record-setting time. It also beat its previous top speed of 18 mph, set just a half-year ago.
“To be fair, keep in mind that the Cheetah robot runs on a treadmill without wind drag and has an off-board power supply that it does not carry,” a Boston Dynamics press release reminds us. “So Bolt is still the superior athlete.”
But the company is looking to change all that, and soon.
In recent months, the Cheetah team “increased the amount of power available to the robot. More power means faster motion and more margin in the actuators for better control,” Boston Dynamics CEO Marc Raibert tells Danger Room in an email. The robot-makers have also been “working on the control system, refining how the coordination of legs and back works and developing a better understanding of the dynamics.
He adds, “You can see that there is still room for improvement at the end of the video we just posted, where the robot starts to go faster, but loses control and trips.”
But those control systems are improving. The next major step is to build an untethered version — one with an onboard engine and operator controls that work in 3D.
“Our real goal is to create a robot that moves freely outdoors while it runs fast. We are building an outdoor version that we call WildCat, that should be ready for testing early next year,” Dr. Alfred Rizzi, the technical lead for the Cheetah effort, says in a statement.
It may sound a little outlandish. But keep in mind: Boston Dynamics has done this before. Its alarmingly like-like BigDog quadruped is able to tramp across ice, snow, and hills — all without the off-board hydraulic pump and boom-like device now used to keep the Cheetah on track. An improved version of the BigDog can haul 400 pounds for up to 20 miles. (See what we mean about robot brawn?) The company also has a biped ‘bot, Petman, that looks like a mechanical human — minus the head.
The idea behind these biologically-inspired robots is that legs can carry machines across terrain that would leave wheels or tracks stuck. To be a true partner to a human soldier, a robot has to walk like one, too. Darpa says Cheetah and company will “contribute to emergency response, humanitarian assistance and other defense missions.” But when the robot was first introduced, Boston Dynamics noted that its flexible spine would help it “zigzag to chase and evade.”
As if being brilliant and super-strong wasn’t unnerving enough.
NASA 360 is an award-winning broadcast 30-minute television show, vodcast, and related online resources that take you on a journey to see how technologies developed by and for NASA impact your life and pave the way to the future.
The Arduino Wi-Fi Shield Makes Taking Your DIY Projects Online Simple
Thorin Klosowski
We’re always fans of a good Arduino project. While a few Wi-Fi solutions have existed to connect your Arduino to the internet wirelessly, the release of the new Arduino Wi-Fi shield makes those projects even simpler.
What’s nice about the Arduino Wi-Fi shield is that it’s incredibly simple to use and set up. As is always the case with Arduino, everything is open sourced, and the reference materials make it easy to learn how to use. The Wi-Fi shield snaps on to an Arduino, connects over 802.11b/g networks, and features both WEB and WPA2 encryption. From a physical standpoint, all you have to do is connect the shield to your Arduino and you’re good to go.
If you’re going to blow over $2,000 on a hexapod kit, you’ll be buying a PhantomX. Why? Because it’s big, it’s strong, it’s fast, it’s creepily organic, and it would have some surprising tricks up its sleeves if it had sleeves. Hang on (or skip forward) until about 2:40 to see one.
This image from NASA’s Curiosity rover looks south of the rover’s landing site on Mars towards Mount Sharp. This is part of a larger,high-resolution color mosaic made from images obtained by Curiosity’s Mast Camera.
In this version of the image, colors have been modified as if the scene were transported to Earth and illuminated by terrestrial sunlight. This processing, called “white balancing,” is useful for scientists to be able to recognize and distinguish rocks by color in more familiar lighting.
The image provides an overview of the eventual geological targets Curiosity will explore over the next two years, starting with the rock-strewn, gravelly surface close by, and extending towards the dark dunefield. Beyond that lie the layered buttes and mesas of the sedimentary rock of Mount Sharp.
The images in this mosaic were acquired by the 34-millimeter Mastcam over about an hour of time on Aug. 8, 2012 PDT (Aug. 9, 2012 EDT), each at 1,200 by 1,200 pixels in size.
Since everybody else is writing about the Curiosity Rover, I guess I need to write something about Mars—like the fact that there’s Morse code up there.
I’m not sure whether this got covered anywhere in the popular media, but the ARRL reported it a while ago.
If you look carefully at the treads on the wheels of the rover vehicle, you’ll notice the predominant, zigzag pattern, but you’ll also see a section of tread on each wheel that’s patterned with dots and dashes. The official word is that they serve as “visual odometry markers” that tell the mission controllers how far Curiosity has roved and let them verify that the rover’s wheels are indeed turning when the rover’s telemetry says it is moving. But I think they’re just a really, really cool hack that some ham on the development team at the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena couldn’t resist. The dots and dashes spell out “JPL” in the surface dust on the Red Planet.
Detail of Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity Rover with tread pattern that will leave an impression on the Martian surface spelling “JPL” in Morse Code (·— ·–· ·-··). Photo courtesy of NASA/JPL.
Yes, Morse code is alive and well. A while back, I had lunch with a professor and some of his grad students. The prof knew I was a ham and told his students that I could actually deode Morse code signals in my head. They were astonished, partly because they didn’t know Morse was still being used anywhere, and partly because a human could copy it without a computer.
Turns out there are a few other examples of Morse code that turn up in unlikely places. The next time you watch a baseball game being played at Fenway Park in Boston, look carefully at the white lines in the scoreboard on the left-field wall. You’ll spot some dots and dashes hiding in plain sight in two of the vertical stripes. They spell out “TAY” and JRY,” for Thomas A Yawkey and his wife, Jean R Yawkey; the Yawkeys were co-owners of the Red Sox for many years.
There is also a “Morse Code” wine in the shops; the specific varietal is spelled out in dots and dashes on the label. The next time you’re shopping for wine, bring along a ham to tell you what it is.
