Once again, our pals at ComBots are offering discounts on this year’s ComBots Cup event. David Calkins writes: ComBots invites all Bay Area MAKE readers and Maker Faire attendees to discounted tickets to “ComBots Cup V,” the fifth annual heavyweight robot combat championship. This event highlights the best combat robot teams in America and their […]
Amanda Boxtel’s excitement is contagious. That’s because she’s been taking the recently unveiled Berkeley Bionics eLEGS exoskeleton for a walk in the park. Not the easiest thing to do if you’ve been in a wheelchair for the last 18 years.
Subscriber RocketGuy tipped us off to this EPFL School of Engineering project involving a fleet of swarming flying robots. Using an ant-inspired swarming algorithm running on a Linux SBC, this network of swarming micro air vehicles is purportedly the largest of its kind.
My friend Erica Kane, from HacDC, recently went to an open house at the University of Maryland’s robotics department. This is a cool thing to do, if you live near a school that has such a department (or some other tech discipline you’re interested in). Call them up and see if/when they’re doing an open […]
ScanCam is a Norwegian semi-autonomous quadrotor drone that lives in a little mailbox-like home to keep it from the harsh elements and to recharge it. Botjunkie: The quadrotors can launch, recover, and recharge themselves at their huts (or “hangars” I guess), and when it snows (which I hear it doesn’t do once or twice a […]
Jim Sellers (Oregon, WI) built this lovely Slink-O-Matic Slinky-playing machine. Why? Why not? D’uh. It “slinks” a slinky for you, at times when there are no stairs and you just have to… Also useful in determining whether one is in the northern or the southern hemisphere. Due to Coriolis forces it will “slink” from right […]
Theo Jansen, the Dutch kinetic sculptor that inspired a way of mechanical walking, has done it again. We’ve seen versions of his walking machines rendered in plastic tubing, laser-cut plastic sheet, wood, metal, paper, cardboard, Legos. And now, baling wire, thanks to MAKE subscriber Brandon Gruber (Vista, CA). Baling Wire Walker More: Theo Jansen papercraft […]
