Tag Archives: automated robot

Humanoid robot can make you coffee and eventually more

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It’s no secret that I’m still afraid that in the far future, robots will rise up against humans when they gain their own intelligence and realize that we’ve been treating them unfairly all these years. That probably comes from watching too much science fiction movies and series where robot overlords rule over the earth. But for now, we’re seeing amazing (sometimes scary) advancements when it comes to robotics and how they will eventually be able to work alongside humans.

Designer: Brett Adcock

The Figure-01 Humanoid Robot has been designed to help you handle some of the simple daily chores, powered by artificial intelligence. Aside from being able to do automated tasks, it is trained to be able to think, learn, and interact within human environments. It is also able to improve on its capabilities by learning from the previous tasks it is able to perform.

The humanoid robot uses some pretty powerful graphic processing units (GPU) to drive the AI learning and system, letting it process some of the complex algorithms needed to train them. The idea is for these robots to eventually fill in the gap in the labor market when it comes to things like warehouses, transportation, and retail. Of course the aim is not to replace humans but to be able to work alongside people and work within an environment with both other robots and humans.

They were able to demonstrate the current capabilities of the Figure-01 Humanoid Robot by showing how it was able to make coffee after 10 hours of training using end-to-end neural networks. I wouldn’t mind having someone else get my coffee ready in the morning by the time I wake up although I’d probably have nightmares of this humanoid robot eventually taking over my life.

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This automated wall-climbing robot was designed by Hausbots to streamline home-construction projects

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HB1 is an automated wall-climbing robot that was designed to streamline home construction projects.

No matter the size, location, style, or chosen building material–when it comes to constructing houses, it can be a dangerous job. Even with bulky construction vehicles, building homes requires a lot of finesse and attention. As our technological worlds evolve, so do our tools and that includes those used for home construction. Home-building robotics company Hausbots developed an automated, climbing construction robot called HB1 to help get home projects done.

Designed with patent-pending wall climbing technology, HB1 hosts an entirely unique technical system that allows it to scale rough surfaces, overcome obstacles, and safely contribute to home-building. Finished with a payload of 6KG, HB1’s integrated technological system can streamline construction projects such as painting, HD visual inspection, as well as building processes. Hausbots outfitted HB1 42 KG of suction force, which allows the four-wheeled robot to scale vertical surfaces as far as 30m from ground level. HB1 can even climb vertical surfaces that are not totally flat as well, including columns, tanks, and corrugated terrain.

Ensuring HB1 steady movement up and down vertical walls, Hausbots crafted a chassis that creates high-speed airflow that converges with low pressure to generate downforce, allowing it to scale buildings of any size and height. In fact, if builders connect HB1 to a tether from the top of a building’s roof, there is no limit to the robot’s climbing range. For building projects that might call for dangerous jobs, such as painting the eaves of homes or replacing roof shingles, HB1’s built-in robotics serve to speed up the process and ensure a smooth landing.

Designer: Hausbots

HB1 features a four-wheeled build with 42KG suction force.

Featuring a 6KG pay load, HB1 can carry various loads to streamline home projects.

HB1 can climb any radius, including columnar structures.

When tethered to the roof, there is no limit to HB1’s climbing range.

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This automated robotic arm is actually an unconventional photo booth that draws your portrait!

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Pankraz Piktograph is a reinterpretation of the classic photo booth, only this one uses automated robotics to translate photographs into portrait sketches.

Photo booths are just as good as cake at parties. Everyone loves a photo strip souvenir they can take home with them and laugh at in the morning or keep for years to follow. Taking inspiration from ancient photo booths like Maillardet’s automaton from the 1800s that didn’t use flash to capture smiles and funny faces, but robotics to perform automatic sketches of people standing before the machine. Felix Fisgus, a design studio, in collaboration with Joris Wegner, multimedia artist, and product designer, designed their very own robotic automated sketch booth called Pankraz Piktograph, a self-contained portrait-drawing robot.

Turning the act of getting your very own portrait into the event itself, Wegner created their Pankraz Piktograph to draw portraits of bystanders at events like science exhibits, trade fairs, and museums for them to bring home. With the press of a button on a handheld remote, the Pankraz Piktograph snaps photographic portraits of its users to then transform into a delicate pencil sketch.

Once the photograph has been taken, it’s translated into a vector representation, which can then be drawn by the automated robot styluses. Equipping the Pankraz Piktograph with the technical makeup to master various drawing styles, users can choose to have their photograph drawn from fast minimalist styles to more intricate, or abstract renderings.

Running the whole show, the Pankraz Piktograph contains a Raspberry Pi 3 that takes charge of drawing on the 3.5” display canvas. The machine’s integrated technology generates vector-based graphics from photographs and increases its contrast to capture the essence and edges of each photograph, leaving out the softer details to prioritize the image’s harsher lines.

Describing the robot’s motion technology, Wegner states, “Each arm is moved by a stepper motor via a one-to-five pulley transmission. This helps to increase the torque as well as the resolution of the movements. We decided to go for an open control loop, thus light barrier sensors at each shoulder joint are used for calibration and determining absolute positions of the arms.”

With such accurate movements, the Pankraz Piktograph is constructed to capture even the finer details of each photograph’s distinct features – from moles to dimples. Attached to each moving arm, the spring-loaded pens are set into motion with a servo motor to make enough contact with the paper, but to keep the pen swift enough to capture slight irregularities in each photograph.

Designer: Felix Fisgus

This robotic pizza-vending machine automates the entire gourmet pizza-making process!

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While frozen pizzas will always have a place in my heart (all those years as a student living on a strict budget), it seems they may be short-lived. A company has built what they claim is a ‘pizza vending machine’ that uses robots to automate the pizza-making process. Called the Piestro (a portmanteau of Pie and Maestro), this machine allows you to order artisanal pizzas with a few button-taps. Choose your toppings and the entire apparatus puts your pizza together from scratch, dispensing sauce evenly on the base, generously scattering the toppings, loading it with cheese, and then baking the pie before dispensing it out to you neatly tucked in a pizza-box. Sure, the Piestro won’t replace actually eating a true-blue New York-style pizza handmade by a master pizzaiolo, but it sort of rings the death knell for pre-packaged pizzas, and possibly even for fast-food chains like Dominos and Pizza Hut… because guess what, the Piestro can run 24×7, allowing you to order a pizza even at 3am in the morning.

The Piestro’s process starts with a pre-made pizza base (it’s easier and lasts longer than fresh wet dough) onto which it pours generous dollops of sauce. The pizza moves down the conveyor belt where the toppings you choose (using a touchscreen interface) are scattered on top of it, right before the pizza makes its way into an oven that cooks the toppings. Sort of like one of those toy-grabbing machines, the entire process is visible behind a transparent panel, before the pizza finally pops out of an opening at the base of the machine taking just 3 minutes from start to finish.

The creators of the Piestro highlight how useful a pizza-vending machine would be in current times. It works without any human intervention, and apart from the fact that it needs to be replenished with fresh ingredients ever so often, the Piestro can practically work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, providing fresh pizzas to people even in a lockdown. Not to mention the fact that the pizza comes untouched by human hands (try and match that, Dominos). The company’s even partnering with PopID to ensure contactless payments by relying on facial recognition to authenticate payments to the pizza machine. The Piestro is currently in its funding stages, looking for partners and investors to hop on board and bring this robotic pizza-master to life.

Designer: Piestro

Boston Dynamics’ latest robot moves away from biomimicry to design a practical warehouse solution!

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Thirty years ago, starting out as a tightknit research company, Boston Dynamics began its quest to create robots that could go where people go, do what people do, and move as people move. Today, a leading engineering and robotics design company, the team behind Boston Dynamics continues to produce and deliver commercial robotics equipped with dynamic control, cutting-edge electronics, and next-generation software. Designed for easy rollout servicing in existing warehouses, Stretch is Boston Dynamics’ latest mobile, automated case-handling robot.

In appearance, Stretch resembles an excavator or backhoe construction truck, with a solid, bottom-heavy base and tensile robotic arm. Filled out with four small wheels for tight turning and lots of movement, Stretch’s mobile base is capable of sliding in every direction and designed to allow the fuller robot to fit anywhere a pallet fits. The long robotic arm provides plenty of reach and height with seven degrees-of-freedom, granting Stretch access to cases and shipping goods throughout any freight space or pallet.

At the end of Stretch’s robotic arm, a smart gripper embedded with sensors and active controls grants Stretch with handling mechanisms to grasp a wide array of different types of packages. Keeping the whole operation going throughout the workday are high-capacity batteries and an advanced perception mast for long-lasting, precise, and stable power. Speaking of how Stretch differentiates the currently saturated truck unloading robots, palletizing and depalletizing robots, and mobile bases with arms, Kevin Blankespoor, Boston Dynamics’ VP of Product Engineering and chief engineer for both Handle and Stretch says “Stretch is built with pieces from Spot and Atlas and that gave us a big head start. For example, if you look at Stretch’s vision system, it’s 2D cameras, depth sensors, and software that allows it to do obstacle detection, box detection, and localization. Those are all the same sensors and software that we’ve been using for years on our legged robots. And if you look closely at Stretch’s wrist joints, they’re actually the same as Spot’s hips. They use the same electric motors, the same gearboxes, the same sensors, and they even have the same closed-loop controller controlling the joints.”

While Stretch is still a prototype, the wheeled robot is the commercial version of a smaller, earlier model from Boston Dynamics called Handle. Stretch currently enacts unloading and building applications for trucks and warehouses, with future plans for truck loading in the works for Boston Dynamics. While the team behind Stretch has yet to name a price, Boston Dynamics is working to make the case-handling robot compatible with other warehouse systems.

Designer: Boston Dynamics

Four wheels fill out Stetch’s mobile base, allowing it to fit anywhere a shipping pallet fits.

Smart gripping technology allows Stretch to reach for and take hold of a multitude of varying package types.

Stretch’s lengthy robotic arm grants the robot access to packages throughout the warehouse and full extension for easy rollout.

The team at Boston Dynamic equipped Stretch with seven degrees-of-freedom, providing plenty of reach and height.

Stretch was designed for warehouse case-handling and truck unloading.