swarming

These little robotic creatures are working hardly. The red army is trying to sort the red blocks, the green army - the green blocks. Of course, this process takes time and unfortunately, I don't have enough space on my cell phone.

:) They have, of course leaders. These are robots that place themselves somewhere and wait for the others from the army to store collected blocks around the selected location.
They can also, communicate with each other, but only with very simple messages, like.. "Hey, I'm here, in front of you, let's both turn left, or we'll crash." (ok, not exactly this way.. however..)

Nao's dancing :)

ze's page :: zefrank.com: Aldebaran Robotics Nao Robot (dancing)

bugz and patches

Tiny, Blacky and Rotko - the new fauna in my room. Rotko ran last week out of batteries. And they are not very clever yet. The problem is, if you want to buy a programmable robot, the prices jump over 200 Euros. These hexbugs are, unfortunately, not made to be reprogrammed. But they are very cheap and with more enthusiasm and skills in electrical engineering, these creatures can be far more interesting. Let's see what will happen :) We formed a group of 3 people (me, Ray and Jonas) and now we are waiting for the delivery of the new components. Here's our guide.
To be honest, the el. schemes seem to me like Egyptian hieroglyphs. But that's why we have Jonas, who happens to be an e-Ing. Ray said, he hasn't programmed in Assembler, but he graduated the "Hochschule" (something like university in which you learn practical things like programming rather than just the naked theory). Therefore I believe in his skills. I have almost no experience in Assembler (except the fuzzy programming of these step motors in the TI: technische Informatik, 5 years ago). But the good news is, that at the beginning you don't have to be so creative. Just follow the steps, there are enough resources on the Internet. However, if we want to make our bugs really smart, then we should prepare for sweating.

swarm robots

And the news-braking line:
"so ... no risk that the robots may take over" ;)
we can now sleep well...

everything

Today I saw the new place of the department where I write my "Studienarbeit". The building is former children' clinic, pretty dark but somehow cosy despite of the ghosty atmosphere. I met there Dominik, who returned from a robotics conference in Japan few days ago. We chatted a little and this gave me the idea to make a list with the cutest robots, which won't be a simple task, because I don't know where to put the border. I mean, should I include also bots without any trace of intellect, or better choosing among the most advanced ones. However:

1st place: QRIO (Sony)

He's not only cute, but also clever. He can communicate with people, play football, but most importantly - he can learn. Unfortunately, this pleasure costs more than 50000$ (not exactly sure about the price).


2nd place: ApriPoko (Toshiba)

:) sweet: robot which is also universal remote control. He has camera and responds to a voice commands.


3rd place: PLEN (Systec Akazawa)

The unique thing for PLEN is his ability to balance very well when skating. Not simply task at all. And his price is also acceptable - around 2000$.


4th place: PaPeRo (NEC)

This babies can sing, send sms, talk with people and lots of other things. They are specially developed to watch over children. Wow. :) But the intelligence has its price...


5th place: Nuvo (ZMP)

Another home friend. He isn't an AI, but at least he can respond to some voice commands. Price: ~7000$.



And, btw, I also met Edy today. She is an african princess and owns the largest smile ever.

Unfortunately, Emilian wasn't there. He is no more with us. He must be sitting somewhere in Seattle working hardly for our enemy and not regretting for anything. Especially because he must have a new strawberry shaker and a huge sea window view. I miss him.. We used to play hacky sack. He has a very big heart, even bigger than Eddie's smile (if the both things are comparable).

After a hard emotional disaster, which left me disabled for the rest of my life, I'm again on my way. But one personal note: what doesn't kill you, doesn't make you stronger either.