By Evan Ackerman
Last weekend BotJunkie was at RoboGames, the world’s largest robot competition, here in San Francisco. We posted one highlight video over the weekend, but after the break, we’ve got a photo gallery plus three more videos featuring Saturday and Sunday highlights and feature on the new Mech Warfare competition.
By Evan Ackerman
This is a highlight reel I put together of the best of the combat robot events from Friday, the first day of RoboGames. The event runs through the weekend, and includes much more than just combat… We’ll be updating BotJunkie.com with plenty more pics and vids. If you want to see more video of Saturday (day 2) highlights, including a couple 340 pound super-heavy combat bots tossing each other into the air, head on over to BotJunkie.com right now, ’cause we’ve got it posted.
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By Evan Ackerman
Over at BotJunkie, we’ve been waiting a year (a year!) for RoboGames, and this weekend, it’s all happening. Men and women, boys and girls from more than 20 countries will be competing in over 70 different events… There’s the combat (from micro-sized to 340 pound) of course, as well as the humanoid events, but I’m particularly looking forward to autonomous competitions and of course the big new event this year: Mech Warfare. We’ll be ringside, taking video. It’s gonna be AWESOME.
For up to the minute pictures and info, you can follow BotJunkie on Twitter. I’ll be Twittering from the event all weekend, and we’ll have oodles of pictures and video next week. Unless I get killed by a rampaging combat robot. Then it might take longer.
The action starts this Friday and runs though Sunday at Fort Mason in San Francisco; buy tickets here… Or if you’re poor like me and you want to get in for free, volunteers are always needed. If you’re interested in that (it’s fun!), email me (evan@botjunkie.com) and we’ll work something out.
[ RoboGames ]
By Evan Ackerman
Last week on BotJunkie, we kicked things off with some cute little papercraft robots from Maker Faire, were absolutely blown away by a giant robot waldo, lusted over a gallery of robots from Maker Faire, pondered an iRobot patent for a dock that offloads dirt from a Roomba, remembered that there are already robot vacuums with docks, admired a bunch of artsy robot animal prints, watched a bunch of robots unsuccessfully challenge humans at soccer, stayed high and dry surfing on a Kuka robot arm, checked out some big mechs from some new movie, didn’t get turned on at all by a robot sex hotline, were impressed by multiple robots that operate with a single brain, watched Willow Garage’s PR2 robot autonomously navigate an office and plug itself in, and finished up the week being very very glad we weren’t a muscly guy getting tazered by a PackBot.
So far this week, we’ve posted about the upcoming consumer robotics revolution, a rat robot called Psikharpax, and the second coming of the Pleo robot dinosaur.
Bot with Stuff, after the jump.
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By Evan Ackerman
Last week on BotJunkie, we began the week watching a video of a crawling floor cleaning robot, wanted to try our hand at a robot vending machine, kept our mouths shut about what purports to be the world’s smallest voice controlled robot, took issue with someone’s list of the 16 most ridiculous killer robots, were intrigued by an iRobot patent for a Roomba with a square front, came to grips with a robot shirt, put down twenty bucks for a kit that makes six different robots (sort of), got a little preview of Maker Faire, listened to a robot bagpiper play some impossible tunes, were impressed by a 7 year old’s suggestion on how to save the Spirit rover, watched a humanoid robot get emotional, and found out why you shouldn’t do the robot.
So far this week we’ve posted our robot coverage of Maker Faire, which includes a giant robot hand, some cute paper robots, and a photo gallery. We’ve also posted a story on an iRobot patent for a dock that automatically empties a Roomba’s dustbin.
Bot with Stuff, after the jump.
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By Evan Ackerman
Last week on BotJunkie, we started off the week with a prototype LANdroid mobile WiFi bot from iRobot, watched a nanobot get pushed around by 3000 bacteria, met a hybrid vehicle/animal/insect robot called Halluc II, checked out more long exposure Roomba art, snuggled up to Snozzy the robot sloth, found out more details on the Ember LANdroids from iRobot, pondered where R2-D2 is hidden in the new Star Trek movie, rolled out with the Rotundus GroundBot surveillance system, watched an awesome break dancing robot, got nervous about researchers teaching robots to be sneaky, got slightly less nervous about researchers trying to teach military robots to be ethical, enjoyed a comic about why Atomic Robo hates Dr. Dinosaur, shed a tear over Broken Circuits (a robot love story), and finished the week with some video of Roomba sumo battles.
So far this week, we’ve already posted about a robot that crawls around and cleans your floor as well as a robot vending machine.
Last week’s bot with stuff, after the jump.
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By Evan Ackerman
Last week on BotJunkie, we started off flaming hot with an overpowered LEGO marshmallow toasting robot, checked out a Japanese Kondo robot competition, were fascinated by a long exposure image of a Roomba’s cleaning patterns, discovered a cheap and easy way to get free robot sex, found out that Boston Dynamics is working on an urban surveillance robot that hops, watched RiSE V3 skitter up telephone poles, got a little bit worried about the Spirit Mars rover getting stuck in sand, met the first humanoid robot to fly on a commercial airliner, watched a robot draw a picture while people yelled at it, saw some spiderbots that Italy wants to send to the moon, tried to help out a lost robot asking for directions, were impressed by some climbing robots that also run, watched a sad little cartoon about a robot and a power plug, and found out why a Roomba doesn’t make your life more efficient.
This week, we’ve already written about Boston Dynamics’ LANdroids, nanobots that use swarms of bacteria to move themselves, and an awesome eight legged/wheeled vehicle/animal/insect robot.
Check out last week’s Bot With Stuff, after the jump.
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By Evan Ackerman
Last week on BotJunkie, we started early on Sunday watching highlights from the 2009 Hexapod Dance-Off (aka the best thing ever), decided we’d much rather have robot babies than real babies, gave some weird looks to a robot that follows your eyes, were horrified by a sheep shearing robot, embraced our laziness with a point ‘n click fetch robot, were kinda impressed with Nao humanoids playing soccer, got creeped out by an underwater robot with giant claws, slept safely inside a conceptual robot that turns into a tent, were sad to see the multiple kill vehicle get cut from the DoD budget, watched a consumer telepresence robot pouring drinks, got slightly titillated by my girlfriend since she is now an actual cyborg, and ended up appreciating the idea of a modded Roomba that prints on the floor and cleans up after itself.
So far this week we’ve posted about a marshmallow toasting robot, Japanese Kondo robots, and some lovely but inefficient Roomba cleaning patterns.
Last week’s Bot With Stuff, after the jump.
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