Things that are powered by the wind are fascinating. Especially sailing and flying. Every time we go to gasworks park I think of bringing a kite and lifting my GoPro camera up there to take some cool shots. Looking around the web I discovered this is no new idea, and that people are taking amazing [...]
Archive for the ‘Robotics’ Category
Excited about a new kind of photography (video)
Posted in Randomness, Robotics, tagged inspiring, KAP, kite, kite aerial photography, Photography, Robotics, Technology on May 9, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
Was James Cameron’s #DeepSeaChallenge “useless”?
Posted in Adventure, Aquatics, Robotics, tagged Deep Sea, Deep Sea Challenge, Mariana Trench, Robotics, ROV, Submarine on March 28, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
I certainly don’t think so. But a compelling article (that I disagree with), makes an interesting argument for robotic exploration of the deep sea. http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/mimssbits/27671/ It’s essentially the same issue we face with manned space flight. But I insist that there is something very special about a real human being exploring the unknown. And there’s [...]
Now I see that an unmanned test was made with Cameron’s sub
Posted in Adventure, Aquatics, Robotics, tagged #DeepSeaChallenge, Deep Sea, Mariana Trench, Technology on March 24, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
Earlier I figured that the visit to the Challenger Deep site, and no news of a dive, meant that landers were dropped in preparation for Cameron’s final mission. Now I understand, from a few spots of news here and there (this one in particular), that the team ran a test with the vehicle while on [...]
Recovering submerged debris
Posted in Aquatics, Robotics, tagged diving, inspiring, Ocean, Robotics, trash on March 15, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
You wouldn’t believe what people throw over the side. This film of a couple divers recovering a used car battery is inspiring. It’s a lot of work to bring something that heavy up off the bottom, and they have a clever system for doing it. If only we could get robots to do that…
Don’t be too impressed
Posted in Robotics, tagged nature, Robot, robotic helicopters, starlings, swarm robotics on March 10, 2012 | 1 Comment »
Maybe you caught that recent TED talk about robotic helicopters, or watched the viral video, or saw my recent post about the musical ones. But if you were impressed, then back up a minute. Any implementation of coordinated motion on a series of robots like that is complex. People are doing it with helicopters, airplanes, [...]
Musical Robotic Helicopters
Posted in Robotics, tagged James Bond, Quadrotor, Robotics, Technology on February 29, 2012 | 1 Comment »
These guys are having too much fun. The University of Pennsylvania’s GRASP lab has received a lot of press lately for their successful implementation of formation control of mini helicopters in the lab. This is over the top though! Check out this clip of a group of quadrotors playing the James Bond theme song.
Even more Kinect stuff
Posted in Robotics, Randomness, tagged Robotics, random, Kinect, Will it Blend?, Blender on February 9, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
Will it blend?
A great play by play of the cruise ship disaster
Posted in Aquatics, Robotics, tagged Boat, Costa Concordia, Disaster, Seamanship, Ship, Technology on January 28, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
This film, produced by gcaptain.com, covers each step (according the ship heading, location, and speed) that lead to the disaster of the Costa Concordia. It seems to me that technology could have prevented this. Who knows what the full story is, who made what mistake, or whether equipment failure was involved, but there is an [...]
More Kinect stuff
Posted in Robotics, tagged Kinect, projects, Robot, Robotics, Technology on January 20, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
the punchline is – I’m getting one. This is a must have, and something I’m planning to use in an upcoming robotics project. Here’s a great example of a robot that uses the Kinect for both recognizing objects it manipulates and also interfacing with an operator:
Pretty cool use of the Kinect
Posted in Robotics, tagged Kinect, music, Robotics, Technology on January 20, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
The Kinect is a pretty exciting tool that has grabbed a lot of attention in the robotics community. People are using it to navigate spaces autonomously, recognize objects, and of course read human input (as an interface). In this music video some creative artists used Kinect images (which provide you with a 3D point cloud) [...]
