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This page will be updated frequently with personal robot news, and stories about
home robots.
| Robot
News (Updated Continuously) |
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| Home
Robot News (December) |
New Home Robot Sees Faces
NEC's Personal Robot R100 can recognize 300 vocal commands and identify the faces
of up to 10 people. The robot has been in development since 1997 but won't be released to
the public for at least another year. There are rumors that it will only be available in
Japan. You can visit the R100 website (now in English) here.
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NECs Personal Robot R100
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Pioneer's Peoplebot
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Pioneer Introduces Peoplebot
ActivMedia, best known for their Pioneer
research robots, has just released "Peoplebot". This exciting robot has two
rings of sonar sensors, voice recognition, text-to-speech and many other exciting
features. The price tag for this one is high, about $6000.00 to start.
Read more about it here.
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This Robot Sucks
Probotics has just released a Hoover
cordless vacuum cleaner for their popular Cye robot. The vacuum cleaner has its own power.
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For more information, click here. |
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Eureka Reveals Robot Vacuum
The Eureka company recently unveiled a robot vacuum cleaner. Put the robot
down and turn it on and it will randomly vacuum until you turn it off, avoiding most
obstacles. The robot can't recharge itself, however. Find out more by clicking
here. |
Eureka Robot Vac
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| Robot
Stories (December) |
| Life and Death of a Mindstorms Robot |
Knowing that I've always loved
robots, my wife bought me a Lego Mindstorms
set for Christmas. It's a great little package, and though I am not mechanically
inclined, I did manage to put together a cool little 'bot.
This is the only picture I have of the little guy. (Picture
taken with my daughter's "Barbie Digital Camera.") |
He had a light sensor in front (it looked like a tie)
pointing up, and his nose (a black Lego piece) was long enough to cover this sensor when
the head was looking forward. I glued a white piece of plastic to each side of the
nose and aimed them so the light sensor would get a reflection of what was on that side of
the room when the robot's head was turned to the opposite side. |
As the robot explored, I randomly turned the head left or right.
This gave the effect that he was looking around. And in fact, I was storing
the light meter readings on each side so the robot could compare them and then move in the
brightest direction.
He had two touch sensors, front right and front left, and I
programmed him to stop and "look" at whatever he hit. (By simply facing
the triggered sensor). Then he would turn and glance over his shoulder before
backing up, turning 45 degrees, and continuing on his merry way.
Building the robot took several days, and the programming took
several more. When I finally had it all working, I set the little guy down in the
living room to show my wife. She was busy cooking dinner so I told her I would wait.
While I wasn't paying attention he wandered into the kitchen, and when Melanie
finally turned around to look at him she accidentally booted him across the room.
Lego pieces exploded across the floor in every direction. There was a moment of
stunned silence, then she nearly burst into tears, "I killed your
robot!" (Her guilt over this incident may help explain why she doesn't give me
a hard time about my fairly expensive hobby. <grin>) |
