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Liquid metal used to create wires that stretch eight times original length – Electronic Products
Electronic Products
by Jeffery Bausch
Have you ever gone to plug something in but found yourself an inch or two short of the outlet? This may soon be an inconvenience of the past thanks to some outside-the-wire thinking by researchers at North Carolina State University. They’ve developed wires that can be stretched up to eight times their original length and still function just as effectively.
What’s more, beyond connecting to a power source, the can also be used for headphones. They also present a unique opportunity when it comes to electronic textiles.
How they did it
The group started with a thin tube made of extremely elastic polymer. They then filled the tube with a liquid metal alloy made up of gallium and indium, an effective conductor of electricity.
“Previous efforts to create stretchable wires focus on embedding metals or other electrical conductors in elastic polymers, but that creates a trade-off,” explains Dr. Michael Dickey, an assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at NC State and co-author of a paper on the research.
“Increasing the amount of metal improves the conductivity of the composite, but diminishes its elasticity,” he adds. “Our approach keeps the materials separate, so you have maximum conductivity without impairing elasticity. In short, our wires are orders of magnitude more stretchable than the most conductive wires, and at least an order of magnitude more conductive than the most stretchable wires currently in the literature.”
Video
While the video below isn’t exactly the most entertaining piece of media ever created, it does demonstrate the effectiveness of the stretchable wire pretty clearly.
Outlook
Manufacturing the wire is pretty simple, but it’s still going to be some time before it hits the shelves. Dickey notes that, of the challenges the group still faces with the technology, figuring out how to minimize leakage of the liquid metal should the wires be severed absolutely needs to be addressed.
In the meantime, you can check out the group’s paper, entitled “ Ultrastretchable Fibers with Metallic Conductivity Using a Liquid Metal Alloy Core ” in the online edition of Advanced Functional Materials. Free log-in is required.
Story via: ncsu.edu
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Webots: robot simulator
Here is a link to a mobile robot simulation program. it has a 30 day free trial then it costs. See http://www.cyberbotics.com/
Posted in Robot Parts, Robot Projects, Teaching Technology
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March of the Machines – 60 Minutes – CBS News
Preview: March of the Machines
January 11, 2013 6:00 AM
Steve Kroft reports on technological advances, especially robotics, that are revolutionizing the workplace, but not necessarily creating jobs. Watch Kroft’s report on Sunday, Jan. 13 at 8 p.m. ET/PT.
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50138761n
The Full Video:
Rebuttal: RIA Chief Slams “60 Minutes’” Robots Report
Association for Advancing Automation “disappointed” in portrayal of the industry
From Robotics Business Review
Jan 14, 2013
by: RBR Staff
ASSOCIATION FOR ADVANCING AUTOMATION: “While the 60 Minutes depiction of how technological advances in automation and robotics are revolutionizing the workplace was spot on, their focus on how implementation of these automation technologies eliminates jobs could not be more wrong,” said Jeff Burnstein, President of A3, a trade group representing some 650 companies from 32 countries involved in robotics, vision, and motion control technologies [and President of the Robotics Industries of America].
Continue reading
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MAKE | Mindstorms Robotic Hand
From MAKE
by John Baichtal
Jan 4, 2013
The hand holds 4 NXT motors to control the fingers and thumb. The 4 fingers are controlled by the 2 outside motors, that are attached to the index finger and pinky. All fingers are connected to a sliding beam, so that the middle and ring finger can also move. This system makes the hand compact, because you don’t need 4 motor for each finger. The drawback is that the fingers can’t be move separately. Anyone who has seen this always asks if it can give ‘the finger’, the answer is NO 🙂 The middle motor has 2 functions. It moves the thumb from and towards the hand. When the motor rotates further it touches the construction that make the fingers spread. So the thumb first moves a bit and the last past of that movement the fingers spread as well. The last motor moves the thumb in and out. It give a nice impression as a palm of the hand.
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Researchers, Hobbyists Developing Flying Grasping Robots – IEEE Spectrum
From IEEE Specturm
Date: Dec 20, 2012
By: Evan Ackerman
Last week, we brought you a bunch of different videos of aerial grasping robots, including robots from DARPA, UPenn, and Yale. Perhaps in response (or just because it’s really freakin’ cool), we’ve had a couple people write in with flying grasping robots of their own, including researchers from University of Twente in the Netherlands, and a scruffy-looking hobbyist from Trossen Robotics.
This first vid comes from the University of Twente, in the Netherlands. It’s part of the AIRobots project, the goal of which is ::deep breath:: “to develop a new generation of aerial service robots capable to support human beings in all those activities which require the ability to interact actively and safely with environments not constrained on ground but, indeed, freely in air.”
It’s kind of amazing how, just in the last few years, plummeting hardware costs and skyrocketing capabilities (which together are enough to give any sane roboticists severe motion sickness) have enabled the group of geniuses that we like to call “hobbyists” keep more or less up with just about whatever the latest research is, at least when it comes to the hardware itself.
Andrew Alter, one of the instigators of Mech Warfare and current senior executive robot geek at Trossen, writes:
I designed a modified PhantomX Hexapod and we built it out of carbon fiber so it’d be light enough to fly. Some friends at Mad Lab Industries are quadcopter gurus so building the rest of the custom hexacopter was a breeze.
Maybe a breeze for you guys, but coming up with what is essentially a hexacopter duct-taped to a hexapod that works is no small feat, as far as we’re concerned. Check it:
Developing robots that can fly and move along the ground has been a priority for the military for a while, because flying robots are versatile but suck down batteries like nobody’s business, while ground robots are, well, stuck on the ground. While perhaps not the most efficient of compromises, the hexapodocopter is (let’s face it) pretty sweet, and there has to be some potential there just for that reason. So if anyone from DARPA is reading this, how ’bout tossing these guys some grant money to see what they can come up with?
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DARPA LS3 quadruped plays follow the leader through mud puddles and more
From GizMag
By Ben Coxworth
September 11, 2012
Fans of freaky-looking robots will already be familiar with DARPA’s quadruped Legged Squad Support System, or LS3 (although it’s also known as Big Dog by its builder, Boston Dynamics). Yesterday, two prototypes of an improved version of the LS3 were demonstrated, and DARPA has posted the video to show off what’s new.
The basic purpose of the LS3 is to serve as a sort of pack mule, carrying heavy gear for troops over rugged, varying terrain. It can follow them autonomously, and respond to verbal and visual commands.
Among the improvements in the new version of the robot is reduced operating noise – it is approximately one-tenth as loud as the original version, allowing soldiers walking next to it to carry on a regular conversation.
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Hackable Lego Robot Runs Linux
Here is a link to a more detailed description of the new Lego NXT Hackable Lego Robot Runs Linux
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Lego Announces Mindstorms EV3, a More ‘Hackable’ Robotics Kit
From: IEEE Spectrum
POSTED BY: Erico Guizzo and Stephen Cass / Mon, January 07, 2013
One of the best robotics kits is now even better. Lego is unveiling its new Mindstorms EV3 kit today at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), in Las Vegas. Check out the new features.
As in the previous set, the Mindstorms NXT, the EV3 comes with hundreds of Lego bricks, plus four motors and five sensors, including a new infrared unit that can be used as robotic eyes or to allow a robot to follow a remote control.
This year marks the 15th anniversary of the Mindstorms kit, and Lego really wanted to make the product more exciting to “an audience of children who have grown up with technology.” So the company set out to redesign the kit by making it, among other things, “more hackable,” to use Lego’s own words.
One of the biggest upgrades is the EV3 programmable brick, which now runs Linux and has a USB port and a micro SD card slot that builders can use add more capabilities to their robots. But the biggest innovation is that Lego made it easier for the EV3 brick to communicate via Bluetooth with Android and iOS apps. That means you can use a smartphone or tablet to control a Mindstorms robot or give it new behaviors.
To program your robotic creations, you can enter commands directly into the EV3 brick via its LCD or you can use the easy-to-use PC software provided. The set also includes a program that Lego created with Autodesk that shows step-by-step 3D instructions for various projects.
The EV3 set will include instructions for 17 different robots, including walking humanoids and insect-like creatures. It will sell for $350 and will be available in the second half of this year.
via ENGAGET
Posted in IEEE, Robot News, Teaching Technology
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