Robotics, features and articles | Educational Science

Sep 30, 2004

Rise of the Robots: Segway Platform Gives Mechanoids Motion

A military project aimed at building smarter robots has given researchers the wheels they need to make their automatons go. Originally developed by New Hampshire-based Segway for a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) program, the firm's Robotic Mobility Platform (RMP) allows robot developers to focus more on the thinking...

Oct 31, 2005

Robot Mouse Has Real Whiskers

The AMouse artificial mouse is a robot with two active whisker arrays -- made from real mouse whiskers. Part of the intent in building the robot mouse is to study biological models of mouse behavior and to investigate the interplay between different sensory modalities (visual and somatosensory). Science fiction fans,...

May 31, 2005

Singing Benches and Trash Cans

Robotic benches and bins with Sirius Cybernetics Corporation GPP (Genuine People Personalities) straight out of Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy have been created by Greyworld, a group of London artists. Andrew Shoben of Greyworld describes the six solar-powered robotic bins and benches in the following way: At first...

May 31, 2005

New Skin Lets Robots Get Sensitive

Scientists are working on a type of skin that will allow robots to be more touchy feely.? The high-tech skin has fingernail sized sensors embedded all over its surface. The sensors allow a robot to feel changes in its surroundings and move accordingly. Robots move well on their own, especially...

Apr 30, 2005

New Robots Clone Themselves

Mimicking reproduction in living organisms, researchers have built a simple self-replicating robot out of automated blocks. Machines that can copy themselves have been built before, but the earlier experiments were limited to two dimensions or confined to a track. Hod Lipson and his collaborators at Cornell University have designed modular...

Feb 28, 2005

Roach Robot Feels Its Way Around

As if the world needs more roaches, engineers are now building a robotic version. Most robotic vehicles sent into dangerous situations rely on cameras or sonar to navigate. Neither method works every time. The new mechanical creature uses a wiggly cockroach-like antenna to feel its way around, mimicking the behavior...

Nov 30, 2006

RoboSalmon to Spy on Fish

RoboSalmon, an underwater robot meant to spy on the real fish, is being developed at Glasgow University. The robot has a built-in camera to broadcast images of real fish back to the operators of the device. Zoologists will use RoboSalmon to monitor various fish species in their natural habitat. A...

Nov 30, 2006

Paul Bunyan Robot Dives For Trees

Sawfish is a real-life robotic underwater lumberjack; it swims down to harvest trees that are now underwater due to flooding to create reservoirs. The Triton Sawfish Underwater Harvester is the world's first viable marine technology for logging underwater forests. It is the only deep water logging machine. Piloted and powered...

Nov 30, 2006

Human Thoughts Control New Robot

Scientists have created a way to control a robot with signals from a human brain. By generating the proper brainwaves—picked up by a cap with electrodes that sense the signals and reflect a person's instructions—scientists can instruct a humanoid robot to move to specific locations and pick up certain objects...

Oct 31, 2006

Miniature Robot to Power Through the Spine

In the 1966 film Fantastic Voyage, a full-size underwater vehicle was shrunk to microscopic size and injected into the blood vessels of a person. Now, a team headed by Dr. Moshe Shoham of Haifa's Technion has created a novel propulsion system for a miniature robot to travel through the spinal...

Oct 31, 2006

Humans Inhabit Body of Experimental Robot

A pair of new, immersive technologies allows a person to inhabit the body of a distant robot in an experiment conducted in Germany. The first is the haptic system (from a Greek word meaning touch) that allows the operator to don a pair of gloves that can actually feel what...

Sep 30, 2006

Microscopic Robot Lends Helping Hand

A microscopic robot hand, made of silicon and plastic balloons, could help perform surgery and defuse bombs. The microhand is so tiny that when clenched into a fist it measures a little over one millimeter across, or roughly as thick as a dime [image]. It is made using silicon finger...

Jul 31, 2006

Battle Bot: Machine Designed to Extract Wounded Troops

The Vecna BEAR robot (Battlefield Extraction and Retrieval Robot) is being developed as an adjunct to other rescue technologies for extracting combat casualties. The BEAR bot has three main elements; hydraulic upper body, mobile platform and dynamic balancing behavior. The robot should be able to fully stand up by straightening...

Jul 31, 2006

Look Mom, No Legs! Robots Enter New Sphere

A new type of robot balances on a ball rather than relying on legs or wheels. The Ballbot, as it is called, can move in tight spots, making it potentially more useful than other designs for some uses. Carnegie Mellon University robotics Professor and inventor Ralph Hollis first started fiddling...

Mar 31, 2006

Incredible New Military Robot

Meet BigDog, a mechanical mutt that does more than snare Frisbees and irrigate fire hydrants. It totes hundreds of pounds of gear so soldiers won't have to, and it will never spook under fire. Developed by Boston Dynamics with funding from the U.S. military, the BigDog prototype is arguably the...