Robotics

DIY-ish wrist real estate. Made of sterling silver and real beer or soda cans (personally emptied by desiger, Dana Roth) these cuffs take beer lover to a whole new level. They’re made in Portland, Oregon… Not to be outdone here are some photo bracelets also on desgn*sponge.

Last week or so we mentioned there was something happening over on WhiteBox Robotics and now they’ve announced their new Model 914 PC-BOT for pre-order. The PC-BOTs come in a couple flavors, and you’ll need to add your own PC, but they’ve taken care of the hard parts- locomotion, motors, power, sensors, etc… for $1,200 or so it’s not exactly cheap, but once you add up all the components and software it’s not bad (the under $2k home robot is finally here). Link.

RoboCup soccer match results are in via Sportsdot.org- The American entry from CMDash from Carnegie Melon fell 2-0 in robot soccer to the powerhouse German squad, the MicroSoft HellHounds. After the match, the German robot dogs were programmed to flex their metal biceps. With the time to devote to development and the financial backing of a company like Microsoft, the German entries are much more polished than their American counterparts at the moment. Last month at the RoboCup German Open, the Germans dominated nearly every category. Link.

Zunk writes “While traditional approaches essentially start with a “brain,” and attempt to build robots “downward” from that, BEAM robotics starts from simple reflexes, in a “bottoms-up” approach. The majority of BEAM robots are non-computerized (although simple CPUs can be used to drive them, in a “horse and rider” sort of way). Unlike many traditional processor-based robots, BEAM robots are cheap, simple, and can be built by a hobbyist with basic skills in a matter of hours. Because of this, BEAM is an excellent way of getting started in robotics, and of learning about electronics”. Link.