Dance Car Robot! DANCE!!!

Fly Eating Robot

It may eat flies and stink to high heaven, but if this robot works, it will be an important step towards making robots fully autonomous.

To survive without human help, a robot needs to be able to generate its own energy. So Chris Melhuish and his team of robotics experts at the University of the West of England in Bristol are developing a robot that catches flies and digests them in a special reactor cell that generates electricity.

So what is the downside? The robot will most likely have to attract the hapless flies by using a stinking lure concocted from human excrement.

Called EcoBot II, the robot is part of a drive to make "release and forget" robots that can be sent into dangerous or inhospitable areas to carry out remote industrial or military monitoring of, say, temperature or toxic gas concentrations. Sensors on the robot feed a data logger that periodically radios the results back to a base station.

Exoskeleton electricity

The robot's energy source is the sugar in the polysaccharide called chitin that makes up a fly's exoskeleton. EcoBot II digests the flies in an array of eight microbial fuel cells (MFCs), which use bacteria from sewage to break down the sugars, releasing electrons that drive an electric current (see graphic).

In its present form, EcoBot II still has to be manually fed fistfuls of dead bluebottles, but the ultimate aim of the UWE robotics team is to make the droid predatory, using sewage as a bait to catch the flies.

"One of the great things about flies is that you can get them to come to you," says Melhuish. The team has yet to tackle this, but speculates that it would involve using a bottleneck-style flytrap with some form of pump to suck the flies into the digestion chambers.

With a top speed of 10 centimetres per hour, EcoBot II's roving prowess is still modest to say the least. "Every 12 minutes it gets enough energy to take a step forwards two centimetres and send a transmission back," says Melhuish.

But it does not need to catch too many flies to do so, says team member Ioannis Ieropoulos. In tests, EcoBot II travelled for five days on just eight fat flies - one in each MFC.

Donated sewage

So how do flies get turned into electricity? Each MFC comprises an anaerobic chamber filled with raw sewage slurry - donated by UWE's local utility, Wessex Water. The flies become food for the bacteria that thrive in the slurry.

Enzymes produced by the bacteria break down the chitin to release sugar molecules. These are then absorbed and metabolised by the bacteria. In the process, the bacteria release electrons that are harnessed to create an electric current.

Previous efforts to use carnivorous MFCs to drive a robot included an abortive UWE effort: the Slugbot. This was designed to hunt slugs on farms by using imaging systems to spot and grab the pests, and then deliver them to a digester that produces methane to power a fuel cell.

The electricity generated would have been used to charge the Slugbot when it arrived at a docking station. But the methane-based system took too long to produce power, and the team realised that MFCs offered far more promise.

Elsewhere, researchers in Florida created a train-like robot dubbed Chew Chew (New Scientist print edition, 22 July 2000) that used MFCs to charge a battery, but the bacteria had to be fed on sugar cubes.

For an autonomous robot to survive in the wild, relying on such refined foodstuffs is not an option, says Melhuish. EcoBot II, on the other hand, is the first robot to use unrefined fuel. Just do not stand downwind.

Whegs!

href="http://biorobots.cwru.edu/Projects/whegs/ICRAminiwhegs_web.mpg

Giant WWII Robots Anybody??

We all know that the Japanese one will come in and kick all sorts of butt right?

Cyborg Name Decoder

Here's a fun program that asks for your name and creates an robot acronym from your name. FUN!!!

Cyborg Name Decoder

Reichbot

Robot Colonies on Mars

Get your travel agent on the horn NOW!

Burning Safari

Here's a short by Gobelins Animation School in France. Yes, STUDENTS!!
Awesome design and animation in this short:

Burning Safari

You can see their other shorts here:

Gobelins Shorts

Cockroach Controlled Robot

Soon they'll be wanting iPods and wireless internet routers!! What is this world coming to!

Transforming Goodness

Oldie but goodie!

Check the Skillz Yo!

MTV Asia: Code Hunters

Blinkink's Ben Hibon turns out this gorgeous sci-fi/western anime hybrid short for MTV Asia.

Robot Papercraft!!

Some cool robot papercraft can be found here!

Echstlectir.com

Just download the PDF file to your computer. Print and BAM! Instant coolness! (assembly required)

It might be cool if you printed these on tin and then made them.

N E M O M A T I C !

AWESOME SITE ALERT!
Check out the site of sculptor extrordanaire Nemo Gould!!! Sweet use of recycled metal, lights and motion. He's going to have a show in the Bay Area from June 8th to mid July. I will post the gallery when I get more info.

Robot Chair?

Useful for...what?

Danger Will Robinson!

For only $24,500.00 US you can own a B-9 robot from "Lost in Space!"

Materials
- Acrylic bubble based on the existing original.
- Laser cut steel brain with polished stainless steel top cover and crown.
- CNC machined light rod ends brain cup and neck bracket.
- Accurate acrylic collar & vents, hand formed based on the original jigs used.
- Fiberglass torso based on the original stone molds.
- Welded steel torso hooks.
- Laser cut aluminum bezel with engraved acrylic chest buttons.
- Machined & clear anodized aluminum microphone with stainless steel screen.
- Actual Dialight sockets and Lens (not reproductions!)
- Hundreds of individual parts fabricated from Fiberglass, acrylic, aluminum, steel, etc.
- All metal tread sections, knee plates and hinges.
- Real rubber tread belts, knee bellows, leg bellows, arms & neck bellows.
- 32 machined aluminum wheels with v-groove.

Accuracy / Season
- 3rd season version (paint & finish as seen in the final season).
- B9Creations was granted access to all remaining original materials. Needed items are on loan here for further study/duplication. All our parts are retooled based on this original material.
- B9Creations is leaving no stone unturned to produce the best possible replica of the Robot character, not the prop. In accordance with this focus, we will not replicate "prop" details that were never meant to be part of the Robot character nor meant to be seen by the viewers. (For example, we will not replicate dents, scratches, excessive texture, suit latches, etc.)

Audio features
- Internal 240 watt stereo sound system.
- Torso knob functions as Robot volume control.
- Over 500 voice tracks by Richard Tufeld, the voice of the original Robot. These are stored on an internal Compact Flash memory card to allow easy updates and customization.
- An external stereo input jack allows the user to override the built in voice library and use the Robot as a normal stereo system, juke box, etc.

Animation
- Animated Crown
- Animated Finger Lights
- Animated Ear Sensors
- Animated Torso Rotation
- Animated "functional" Soil Sampler

Control
- A 5 button key chain remote control allow you to discretely activate the Robot. Functions include turning the Robot's torso left/right, directing the Robot's voice to respond "Affirmative/Negative", activating the Robot's soil sampling sequence.
- The 10 chest buttons are functional and activate various phrases. These phrases can be customized by Richard Tufeld at an additional cost.
- Master power switch on the back of right tread section, next to power cord plug and external audio input jack.
- The "Programming bay" toggle switches will be used for Robot Activation, Audio Source Selection and animation enable/disable.
- Functional Power Pack - Pulling the Robot's "Power Pack" will shut down the Robot with the "Aaghhhhhh..." sound, just as it did in the TV series. Plugging in the power pack activates the Robot and he will speak an appropriate phrase, "Who turned out the lights?", etc.
- Torso knob functions as the Robot's sound system volume control.

Articulation (user positionable)
- Torso is motorized and rotates via Remote Control
- Radar (head section) rotates
- Arms extend / retract
- Claws, rotate open and close in sync

Oops! Sorry! All 200 of the current robot stock has already been reserved. Check back here for availability:

Lost in Space Robot

Puttin' the Smack down: Robot Style

Mechanical Manta

More robo goodness for the masses! Ya had to ask for more didn't ya.

More Mechanical Madness for Mark

My pal Mark asked for more robots. Okay, here ya go!

KR1-B0T

So work has slowed a tad so I can continue posting new stuff. Here's one to get the oil flowing again.

Layered X: Transforming Robot

This robot can transform from crawling spider mode to walking humanoid mode and more! What do you expect from a country that invented Origami? When can I order mine?