The online Make magazine portal just published a nice article on how to make your very own BEAM vibrobots. For those of you unfamiliar with the BEAM movement, the basic notion is to wire up simple circuits that connect photo-sensors almost directly to motors, so that by shining a light on the simple robot, it will scurry around either towards, or away from, the light thereby mimicking any number of insects. And then, of course, there is all the fun and art in arranging the components to look as insectile as possible.The Vibrobot takes this notion to a minimalist extreme by eliminating wheels, and reducing the number of motors to one tiny pager motor with an eccentric weight attached. When light shines on the photo-cell, the motor vibrates, and with proper sprung leg designs, the robot will scurry along in fine insect fashion. And without the wheels, the vibrobots are ever more insect like in form as well.Here's a page from the no-doubt forthcoming print edition showing the simple circuit used for these nifty little critters...

The Mobi team and I have just returned from a hugely successful stint at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Overall, I'd have to say that CES has now grown to the point of absurdity, far beyond the capacity of the conference centers, and even the city to manage. At one point, it actually took us almost two hours to get out of the trade show parking lot due to the gridlock. Cabs weren't an option as the lines were over two hours long, and the silly little monorail could only transport 50 people at a time when more than 150,000 of us geeks were trying to arrive and depart from the show. It would have been laughable if it wasn't so painful.It ended up being faster to just walk the several mile round trip to the hotel and back. Nonetheless, we endured the orgy of large screen television, mobile technology and jimcrackery that now fills the convention centers beyond capacity, spilling over into all the nearby hotel suites.I fondly remember a day when there were two more manageable shows, Comdex for the computer stuff, and CES for electronic widgitry and televisions. ...

Don't miss this video of a model car factory line that assembles a tiny LEGO car model. It is absolutely fascinating how they have fabricated all of the automated carriage transport, part feeds, and assembly complete with mechanisms for part registration, and stations to move the work in progress.

TechEblog had a pointer to this great video of a robotic puppy that someone had put together using a couple of Nokia 770 PDAs and an educational robotics kit.What really caught my eye on the video, beyond the oh-so-pathetic doggie graphics on the screen, was how complex the movements were, and how high-torque the servo motors were. So I tracked down the source of the kit and found a treasure trove for the aspiring roboticist at very reasonable prices. Check out the Robotis Web site.The Bioloid educational robotics kits are some of the best in the business, and genuinely useful for some real robot hacking.All sorts of Robots are possible.There is even a programming environment with movement training and image processing capabilities accessible through code written in C.Here's a photo of the expert kit:I wish they had one of these suckers when I was a little sprout.

All you wanna-be robot hackers take note. Tod Kurt's new book on hacking the Roomba robot vacuum cleaner is available for pre-order on amazon.It's a great platform with a decent processor and interface, very well-engineered sensors and motor systems, and is relatively cheap for all the hackable robotic excellence it contains. $180 for the robot, and $17 for the book seem like a good deal. The book highlight all sorts of projects including adding a camera and making the robot draw on paper and so on. Every high school should have four or five of these suckers.

The Make Magazine web site pointed me to this great open house activity that the Electrical Engineering department over at WUSTL put on for potential incoming freshmen. Students could show up and build their own light-activated robot with a few dollars worth of parts in about 30 minutes using absolutely no tools whatsoever. And they got to take their new pet home when they were finished with version 1.0.Using the paint roller drive wheel vs. motor shaft ratio of diameters as an effective gear reduction is a bit of creative genius. Given that there are only ten or so parts and the instructions are only a page long, I'm thinking this one could be useful even in late elementary school.Some early prep work was necessary to hot-glue the breadboards to the paint rollers, and perhaps solder the connectors onto the battery leads. But intrepid students could easily figure that part out for a longer classroom activity. I just love this photo from the web site of one student "walking their robot" and leading it with a flashlight.Get the one-page assembly instructions here and get those kids building robots. Once they've mastered this initial version, ...

MIT's Jonathan How and his grad students Brett Bethke and Mario Valenti have managed to design and build an actual flock of autonomous flying robots that coordinate their actions.The craft are pretty neat in and of themselves, complete with sensors, adaptive control, and inertial guidance on top of the quad-rotor design. And their independent cooperation promises some really interesting future missions around surveillance, support, and rescue applications. Until Cyberdyne Systems mounts weapons on them and Terminators descend from the sky anyway.Notice that they are already surrounded by flying aircraft and are holding up their hands in surrender.Seriously though, coordinated autonomous flying is definitely high cool.

The tiny mobile robot named Opportunity is NASA's little engine that just keeps on kicking interplanetary exploration ass. This robot has been chugging away across the Martian landscape since it landed in January of 2004, and is fully-functional after over 30 months in the Martian environment. That is quite an accomplishment considering that its original mission was slated to last a mere three months.Opportunity is now set to reach Victoria Crater, a potential treasure trove of science data. Go! Go Opportunity! Go!Check out these links for more details.A full article on Universe TodayOriginal NASA ReleaseNASA Rover Site

Just how cool is it to really love making robots and then become a multi-millionaire doing it? Well that's what Helen Greiner and Colin Angle did. They recently took their MIT A.I. lab spin-out company, iRobot, public.Here is a picture of my old grad school buddies (found in Forbes) posing in front of a few of their progeny ranging from the ubiquitous Roomba autonomous vacuum cleaner to the Packbot military robot in widespread use across Iraq.I remember the early nineties when the two of them first started the company, then named Artificial Creatures, and all the hard work and long hours they endured. Those were tough times, and they persevered though many around them harbored serious doubts. I must have had at least 20 different people tell me at the time that they would never succeed in building a financially successful company "just building robots."Well, I must say they are looking pretty darn pleased with their successes now, so their lock-up must have expired recently. To all you robot doubters, here's mud in your eye. And kudos to Helen and Colin, as they inspire future generations of robot builders.