Impressive HRP-4 robot will make you bow in deference (video) -- Engadget:

Now, all we need is about $300,000 for this and we're set !! :)

Impressive HRP-4 robot will make you bow in deference (video) -- Engadget:
By Thomas Ricker posted Sep 17th 2010 6:29AM

Japan's National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) is back with the mighty impressive HRP-4 humanoid. Created in partnership with Kawada Industries, this 151-centimeter (5-feet) tall, 39-kilo (86-pound) walking followup to the HRP-4C, HRP-3 and HRP-2 robots (pictured in the background) was developed to help take over manufacturing duties from a rapidly aging Japanese work force. The highly mobile HRP-4 features 34-degrees of movement with AIST proprietary control software running on a Linux core. Things get weird at the 5:30 mark of the video embedded after the break when a human enters the stage for a good ol' fashioned stare down. Probably has something to do with his hot wife."

Here's the video

Chumby Hacker single board Linux computer

We should take a look at these and see if this is good for the next robot project.

Chumby hacker boards

For hackers who missed out on the Chumby craze, Adafruit has a pile of Chumby PCBs for sale.

The Chumby Hacker Board is a cool single board Linux computer that has much of the same hardware as the famous Chumby One. It's great for people who are experienced with Linux and want to have the power of a microcomputer with audio and video output while at the same time getting all the peripherals of a microcontroller such as analog-to-digital conversion, PWM outputs, sensors, bit twiddling, and broken-out GPIOs!

Open source synthetic intelligence project - a new Brain for a Robot [?]

This looks very interesting to build with for a Robot

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Open source synthetic intelligence project

Another day, another cool-sounding Kickstarter project. This one is titled E1: synthetic intelligence, open source.

E1 is an inexpensive open source hardware kit in the same theme as the Arduino--for bringing synthetic intelligence to electronics projects. We've made tremendous progress over the past year, but now we need your help to get it manufactured.

A while ago we realized even the most powerful microcontrollers are just too limited for complex machine learning tasks. At the same time, we weren't interested in all the overhead of a processor and OS. We wanted something right in the middle, made for the task, to coordinate between our sensors, locomotion, and the user. E1 is a custom core embedded within an FPGA. It requires no PC to use or train, is thoroughly flexible, and completely open.

Here's how it works. Attach inputs like cameras, microphones, and sensors--and output mechanics, like servos, actuators, or motors. E1 starts out in an untrained state, but can receive reward and punishment with a remote. It can also detect some set of behaviors, like facial expressions. Over time E1 not only learns what you teach it, but learns the conditions that lead to reward and punishment and so when it should reward or punish itself.

Surprisingly complex behaviors are possible with the combination of simple training and the sensory analytics done by the E1. And all of these details are handled out of your way, from signal decoding to feature detection. Tap the outputs via the header pins on the board itself, or let E1 talk to your outputs for you.

See more on the project website. (Note that the Kickstarter funding goal must be met by 9/6)

The Cyborg Fly Project Guides a Robot Through an Obstacle Course

I want my Cyborg !!


The Cyborg Fly Project Guides a Robot Through an Obstacle Course
http://gizmodo.com/5624422/the-cyborg-fly-project-uses-a-tethered-fly-to-guide-a-robot-through-an-obstacle-course


So what's the significance of having a fly-controlled robot? Apparently, the technique could be used to help track micro and nano robots, which are difficult to follow due to their high relative velocities. Although the Cyborg Fly Project is not the only bug "flight simulator", it has a unique high-speed vision component that could translate into both future biology research and industrial applications like keeping tabs on a production line. [IEEE Spectrum via Boing Boing]

Free booklet on mechanisms for automata and other projects

MAKE:

Free booklet on mechanisms for automata and other projects

http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2010/08/free_booklet_on_mechanisms_for_auto.html

For a limited time, Cabaret Mechanical Theatre is offering a free download of an eighteen page booklet by famed automata-maker Paul Spooner. This is a great resource for the mechanically-curious and must have for automata-makers.




--enjoy !!

--http://www.vintagecomputer.net/ragooman/

ERROR !!
***The schematic is being updated to reflect the fixes made over the weekend and will be posted online soon. ***

This is still using the AVR TINY2313. One of the guys picked up a RC Car from the Thrift store. So naturally he wanted to hack this into a Terminator, crush, kill, destroy --hah-- a robotic rover of course, something which could navigate on it's own.

The drive motor and the steering motor is wired using a L298 motor driver chip.

BTW, from all this we have another AVR convert !! Yes, another hacker devoted to the world of AVR microcontrollers :)

Make: Online : Multitouch robot swarm controller

This is a very interesting application for Robot Swarming technology

Make: Online : Multitouch robot swarm controller:
"Got an unruly swarm of robots that needs taming?
Whip them into shape with this multitouch control interface by Mark Micire of UMass Lowell. [via BotJunkie]"

LED Matrix using an AVR ATTINY2313 and 74LS374

LED Matrix using an AVR ATTINY2313 and 74LS374

This is a little circuit to drive a 5x7 jumbo LED matrix module that I picked up at a local hamfest. All it takes is a ATTINY2313 and a 74LS373 octal latch to create a row/column mux to access the individual Leds in the module. Attached is the schematic. the 6pin ISP programmer is not shown, this is a given , if you're using one of the available programmers, such as the AVRISP mkII from Atmel. I will post a pic of the module shortly with the pins labled.

NOTE: Atmel released a newer version of this microcontroller, it's now the ATTINY2313A

Slashdot Hardware Story | Dutch Hackers Create Wi-Fi Sniffing Drone

This looks like a great UAV Robot project...

Slashdot Hardware Story | Dutch Hackers Create Wi-Fi Sniffing Drone:
"The WASP, or Wireless Aerial Surveillance Platform, has been built out of a hobby-grade airframe and open source Ardupilot autopilot, reports sUASnews. In the words of the Rabbit-Hole website, it's a 'Small Scale, Open Source UAV using off the shelf components. Designed to provide a vehicle to project cyber-offensive and defensive capabilities, and visual / electronic surveillance over distance cheaply and with little risk.'" Want a drone of your own? The makers have some pointers to helpful resources.

Final Projects ECE 4760

Here's a great AVR project page done by college students at Cornell. I only wish I was back in college with all that free time again :)
Final Projects ECE 4760

NASA - NASA's First Robotic Crew Member To Tweet From Space Station, Available For Interviews

NASA - NASA's First Robotic Crew Member To Tweet From Space Station, Available For Interviews

HOUSTON -- NASA's Robonaut 2 has no voice but is ready to tell you its story -- in 140 characters or less. The prototype robot will travel to space this fall to give NASA a deeper understanding of human-robotic interaction.

Called R2, the robot has started sending updates about its upcoming mission from its new Twitter account, @AstroRobonaut. With the help of its supporting team, R2 will document its preparations for launch and, eventually, its work aboard the International Space Station.

"Hello World! My name is Robonaut 2 -- R2 for short," R2 and the team tweeted this week. "Follow my adventures here as I prepare for space!"

Follow R2's updates on Twitter at:

http://www.twitter.com/AstroRobonaut

Robot Builders Sourcebook - my old webpage is in there

Whoa !
My old Robotics webpage from 1996 made it into the publication of Robot Builders Sourcebook. I never knew that !!
You can see the page in the book here. Google Books

=Dan

My old biped robot projects from 1995

Now here's some Biped Robots that I built some 15yrs ago,
when this stuff was still in it's infancy.




Pinocchio, 1995
http://www.arrickrobotics.com/robomenu/pinocchi.html













Gigantor, 1995
http://www.arrickrobotics.com/robomenu/gigantr3.html

Aldebaran Robotics, the creators of Nao | Aldebaran Robotics

Another cool biped robot

Aldebaran Robotics, the creators of Nao | Aldebaran Robotics

TOOLS: Lin Engineering - Online Conversion Tool

Here's a great online conversion tool, from/to any units, english/metric

Lin Engineering - Step Motor Specialists

Robots: Online Human-Robot Interactions

In its latest episode, the Robots podcast interviews Sonia Chernova at thePersonal Robots Group at MIT's Media Lab. Chernova is using a free, online game called Mars Escape to learn about how humans and robots can work in teams. As you log into the game, you are teamed up with a second human player, with one person taking on the role of an astronaut, and the other one controlling a Nexi robot. You and your astronaut (or robot) partner then find yourselves on a mission on Mars, where you will have to brave various challenges. This episode's second guest is Kenton Williams, also from the Media Lab. In the interview, Williams shares some of the technical aspects behind one of the Media Lab's most expressive robots, the MDS robot Nexi.Play the game, read on, or tune in!

CMU Launches $7 Million Educational Initiative

This is a big story...

CMU Launches $7 Million Educational Initiative

The CMU Robotics Institute, with the help of a seven million dollar DARPA grant, has announced the launch of a four year educational initiative called Fostering Innovation through Robotics Exploration (FIRE). The goal is to use student interest in robotics to encourage computer science education, and to steer students toward science and engineering careers. In addition to embracing existing educational robotics competitions such as FIRST and VEX, CMU will also be creating new competitions.

http://robots.net/article/3035.html

Welcome to the new Blog - This is only a Test 3 2 1

Welcome to the new Blog - This is only a Test 3 2 1

C code: Some weirdness with 'strcmp' when using Interrupts with UART

Below is an excerpt from the post I put on AVR Freaks under AVR Forum about this weird problem involving the 'strmp' library function. This was burning my metallic butt all week. I have a simple workaround to continue coding for now. The complete post with test code and display output can be see at this [link] If you night have any suggestions feel free to post here or on AVR Freaks.

I posted a problem about 'strcmp' in another post earlier today. I programming our robot to use a command line interface to accept commands over the serial port. This is wired to usart1 on a ATMega128 on a Olimex AVR-MT-128 controller with a DB-9 onboard.

Below is each test code and output showing that I get two diff results when using 'strcmp'. I don't know why this is happening.
Basically, 'strcmp' is supposed to return a 0 when the compare is true. This does happen when using 'fgets' to enter a string.

But in my other test code, where I use interrupts on the usart, the 'strcmp' *does not* return a 0 when the compare is true. Instead, it returns a 13. So I had to edit my test code in order to get it to work.

I hope somebody knows about this. In the meantime, I have to use '13' instead of '0' when using 'strcmp', this is how I have to get my robot to work properly.

Great Tutorial on programming the Atmel AVR - using Timers

Here's a great tutorial on programming the Atmel AVR microntrollers on using Timers. This is a very in depth and informative instruction. It provides a lot of the details and sample code on how to program the Timers in all the different ways that are possible.

This is found the largest forum for AVR microcontrollers , AVRFreaks.com

http://www.avrfreaks.net/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=viewtopic&t=50106

More Tutorials on C programming for the AVR microcontrollers is here

http://www.avrfreaks.net/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=viewforum&f=11&sid=ac02ac61384d3b81c1481e53aeac8cf8

=Dan Roganti

Welcome to a new Blog for our Pittsburgh Robotics Club

Welcome to a new Blog for our Pittsburgh Robotics Club

It's been a long time coming since we started out club over 5yrs ago.

So there's a lot of catching up to do on here.

This blog is used mainly for posting all the activities.

The main website has been moved recently and the pages are still being transferred.

http://www.pittsburghroboticsclub.org/

=Dan