Cool Robot Of The Week Cool Robot Of The Week The honor of being…

 Cool Robot Of The Week




Cool Robot Of The Week
The honor of being listed as "Cool Robot Of The Week" is bestowed upon those robotics-related web
sites which portray highly innovative solutions to robotics problems, describe unique approaches to
implementing robotics system, or present exciting interfaces for the dissemination of robotics-related
information or promoting robotics technology. This award carries absolutely no monetary value, official
recognition, assumed support, or tangible benefit, other than swamping your web site with a few dozen
extra hits for a week. But everyone else was putting up their "Cool Site Of The Millenia" lists, so we
figured it was our turn too...
  This week's selection:

            Golem Project - an "artifical life" project from Brandeis University DEMO lab studying the
     Set 04 automatic design and manufacture of robotic lifeforms (see the Washington Post article
            here).

  Previous Cool

     Aug 28            RoboCup 2000 - Fourth Robot World Cup Soccer Games and Conferences, taking
                       place this week in Melbourne (see the current scores here).
     Aug 21            Autosub - a UK project to develop unmanned autonomous underwater vehicles
                       technology for advanced marine science.
     Aug 14            M2000 - paint-stripping robot for cleaning super tankers, a development of the National
                       Robotics Engineering Consortium.
                       Many-Robot Systems - description of an ONR Space and Naval Warfare Systems
     Aug 07            Center project conducted between 1992 and 1995 to investigate some of the
                       system-level issues associated with multi-agent systems.
     Jul 31            Jijo-II - office conversant mobile robot.

     Jul 24            Gastronome - a prototype meat-eating robot, part of the University of South Florida
                       Gastrobotics Project. And you thought the Slugbot was bad!
                       Lorpex - prototype planetary exploration robot that combines robotics technology with
         Jul 17        In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU), from the University of Arizona Space Engineering
                       Research Center.


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Cool Robot Of The Week

              NavChair - an assistive navigation system for wheelchairs based upon mobile robot
    Jul 10    obstacle avoidance, developed at the University of Michigan Mobile Robotics Lab (also
              check out the follow-on work known as GuideCane).
       Jul 03 K-9 - Mars rover prototype and field test program to integrate and demonstrate robotic
              technologies for future Mars missions.
       Jun 26 Robonaut - robotic astronaut surrogate for space operations, under development by the
              NASA Johnson Space Center (see the Robonaut stories on Yahoo! and CNN).
    Jun 19    Half Fish, Half Robot - story from New Scientist Magazine, reporting on the first
              animal-robot hybrid.
    Jun 12    Miller's SnakeBots - describes several generations of snakebot reserach by Dr. Gavin
              Miller, who is collaborating with the NASA Ames Serpentine Robotics Project.
              BEAM Millenium Robot Games 2000 - This year, WCRG joins forces with the
    Jun 05    world-established BEAM International Robot Games, to make this year's event truly
              world-class
    May 29    RoboCup-Euro 2000 - First RoboCup European Championship and Conference,
              RoboCup-Euro 2000 Amsterdam (see an overview of the rules and set-up here).
       May 22 Snakebot - hyper-redundant, serpentine robots composed of simple low degree of
              freedom modules , under evaluation for possible space applications.
              Evolution of Machines - polymorphic robot concepts have been around for a while, but
    May 15    this project at Brandeis University is one of the first efforts to progrees from pure
              simulation to physical implementation (check out the related article from New
              Scientist).
    May 08    LePot - a giant robotic flower pot that autonomously drives around on a Swiss
              administration building roof top (check out the 24-hour time lapse video).
              SpaceCat - a stepping triple-wheel robot for potential planetary exploration, part of the
       May 01 ROSA Project at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne Autonomous
              Systems Lab.
    Apr 24    RoboRama 2000 - description of the annual robotics competition hosted by the Dallas
              Personal Robotics Group, along with the results page
    Apr 17    SUBMAR - societies of underwater robots for internal monitoring and control, from the
              Helsinki University of Technology Automation Technology Laboratory.
              Foothill High School and NASA Ames Research Center & Vintage High School and
              NASA Ames Research Center and NAPA Pipe & Briston Meyers Squibb North
    Apr 10    Brunswick Township High School - winners of the National Championships, and
              Mountain Home High School and Baxter Healthcare Corporation - winners of the
              Chairman's Award, at the 2000 FIRST Robotics Competition held last weekend in
              Orlando.
    Apr 03    Salamander - "the robotic sludge crawler project" - with a name like that, we just
              couldn't resist!

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 Cool Robot Of The Week


     Mar 27            SNUF - simple autonomous mobile robot constructed of second-hand components -
                       includes a complete description of the utilized architecture and downloadable code.
     Mar 20            Robotics Webring - A web ring established as a simple way to find robotics and
                       electrical engineering content on the web.
                       RobOnWeb - A project at the Autonomous Systems Lab of the Swiss Federal Institut of
     Mar 13            Technology in Lausanne (Switzerland) which aims to develop new concepts for
                       teleoperation of mobile robots through the World Wide Web.
         Mar 06        Robotics Education Project - NASA-sponsored efforts to develop K-12 curricula in
                       robotics education.
     Feb 28            Robot Pike - An MIT project to build a robotic fish, to understand the complex fluid
                       mechanics that fish use to propel themselves.
                       PETS - from the Univeristy of Maryland Autonomous Mobile Robotics Lab, the
     Feb 21            Personal Electronic Teller of Stories may be the future of household robotics - where
                       the user builds the robot to suit their mood (or task), rather than selecting a pre-defined
                       robotic solution for the task at hand.
                       Thing - from the Univeristy of Massachusetts Laboratory for Perceptual Robotics, it's a
     Feb 14            four-legged walker, it's a robotic hand, it's a globe-twirler... (it's a floor polish, it's a
                       desert topping.... [SNL fans will get that one])
                       RCX Internals - a very detailed description of the Lego Mindstorms RCX controller,
     Feb 07            which provides a great start for experiemnting with modifications/extensions to the
                       RCX hardware and software.
                       MVACS RA - the Mars Polar Lander (MPL) may have disappeared when it reached
         Jan 31        Mars, but the flight spare robotic arm developed for MPL is still being run through it's
                       paces in tests recently conducted in Death Valley.
     Jan 24            Troody - a fully contained 3D bipedal walking dinosaur robot, from the MIT Leg Lab.

     Jan 17            CRIP - collective robotics intelligence project from the University of Alberta Computer
                       Vision and Robotics Research Group.
                       Nomad - robotic search for Antarctic meteorites, deployed this week to Elephant
         Jan 10        Moraine for the 2000 field test - see additional info and daily reports here along with
                       the New York Times story. ** 01/23/2000 Update ** Nomad found a meteorite!
                       Mind control of robots - a demonstration of direct control of a robot manipulator from a
     Jan 03            rat's brain (draw your own analogies regarding robot control from a grad students'
                       brain).
Note:          indicates the organization is developing technologies for space applications of robotics

        Check out the 1999 cool...


        Check out the 1998 cool...



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 Cool Robot Of The Week

       Check out the 1997 cool...


       Check out the 1996 cool...




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Maintained by: Dave Lavery
Last updated: September 04, 2000




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