:: GussetBLOG ::

:: Tuesday, May 06, 2008 ::

Robot Invasion

"A village in south-west England will shortly be swarming with robots competing to show off their surveillance skills. The event is the UK Ministry of Defence's (MoD) answer to the US DARPA Grand Challenge that set robotic cars against one another to encourage advances in autonomous vehicles. The MoD Grand Challenge is instead designed to boost development of teams of small robots able to scout out hidden dangers in hostile urban areas. Over 10 days in August, 11 teams of robots will compete to locate and identify four different threats hidden around a mock East German village used for urban warfare training, at Copehill Down, Wiltshire"

Labels: Robots

:: Dan 6.5.08 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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[thanks ana]

Labels: Art, Engineering, Robots

:: Dan 31.3.08 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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Yellow Drum Machine


"This is a robot I just made.
It was very hard to film, as the camera came in the way for any natural behavior. Anyway, here is what it usually does:

• Navigate around, collect some data, avoid obstacles, until it
• Finds something "worth playing on" (a single isolated object or a wide flat surface that it can find an angle onto)
• Snakes into place
• Plays some beats on what it have found, and samples this, checking it has a "good sound"
• Based on data collected in the area, and sample just made, then compose a little rhythm, and plays this along with the sample

"Why? Well.. I was sitting thinking what I should do for my next robot, what it should do.. Listening to music.. making a rhythm with some robot-parts.. Thought; "Hey, I will make a robot that drives around and plays on stuff"
As always, get more on letsmakerobots.com"

Labels: Instruments, Music, Programming, Robots

:: Dan 23.3.08 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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Bristol Kite Festival 05
Originally uploaded by gusset.

Computers to fly kites and produce energy | The News is NowPublic.com
A cunning idea for getting the most out of wind energy, anyone who flies a kite knows how you can keep it up even in very low winds by flying a figure of eight pattern, and the idea of controlling that effectively robotically is fascinating. Unfortunately the article is very slim on details of how the power is generated from doing this, except to say that "when the kites tug on the lines this turns the turbine." I'd like to see more detail there, and know if it generates enough energy to power the computer that's controlling it for a start.

A couple of my Bristol Kite Festival photos from last week appear alongside the article, but everyone else's are much better, have a look at those.

Labels: Environment, Flickr, Kites, Robots

:: Dan 11.9.07 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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This is for Hsiao, I know he still harbours dreams of setting up his own audiophile hi-fi company.
Film about Audiophile Club of Athens

At the opposite extreme, I think this is the scariest thing I have ever seen:
Scary hacked animatronic robots sing Fergie's 'London Bridge'

Labels: Audio, Audiophile, Hi-Fi, Robots

:: Dan 7.8.07 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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