Tag Archives: roach

This Robot Roach Can Jump Five Feet High

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Warning. Read any further, and your fear of cockroaches will be kicked up several notches. That’s because a collaboration between South Korea’s Seoul National University and UC Berkeley has created it’s latest unholy robot. Yes, mankind has built a robot cockroach that can crawl around and also jump five feet in the air.

robot_roach_1zoom in


It is called the JumpRoACH, naturally. It weighs two-ounces and has six crawling feet and a diamond-shaped jumping/launching mechanism powered by eight latex bands and a DC motor. What is groundbreaking here is the robo-roach’s ability to control the power of its catapult mechanism, and time its launch so it makes the jump.

It can’t fly yet, but it does have wings that it can open to flip itself over onto its feet. Give them time and these things will be flying. Then what will stop them? Nothing. After the nukes drop, real and robo-roaches will one day fight for control over the planet.

[via Popsci via Engadget]

ICYMI: Smashing bacteria, high-jumping roboroaches and more

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Today on In Case You Missed It: Researchers from Seoul National University and UC Berkeley developed a robotic roach that jumps more than five feet high because people weren't scared enough of robots as it is. A team from Brigham Young University...

Mad scientists turn roaches into cyborgs, control them with Kinect, laugh at nature

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Mad scientists turn roaches into cyborgs, control them with Kinect, laugh at nature

We'd love to tell you that the researchers at North Carolina State University aren't monsters who implant circuits on living things so that those living things do their bidding, but we'd be lying. They totally do that, roaches are their primary victim, and now they're using Microsoft's Kinect to help them control the insects. Sure, why not!

As Dr. Alper Bozkurt of NCSU says in today's new release, "Our goal is to be able to guide these roaches as efficiently as possible, and our work with Kinect is helping us do that." Apparently the researchers are employing Kinect for data collection as well, determining how effectively the cyborg survivors respond to electrical impulse-motivated control. They say the end goal is to use the partially mechanized arthropods to, "explore and map disaster sites." For now, there's some very weird stuff happening in North Carolina. Head below for a video of the roaches in action.

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Source: North Carolina State University

RoboRoach Kit Lets You Control a Living Roach With Your Smartphone

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I’m not particularly fond of roaches, but I don’t exactly hate them either. I’d just rather not come face to face with any one of these insects because creepy crawly insects just give me the heebie jeebies. That said, I’m still on the fence when it comes to the RoboRoach project by Backyard Brains.

RoboRoach1

The RoboRoach kit, which is currently up for funding on Kickstarter, includes the “backpack”, a helmet, a battery, and recording electrodes. You’ll have to be comfortable with handling roaches, because you’ll have to anesthetize them before performing surgery on them to place wires into their antennae.

Once everything’s all set up, then you can begin to control the cyborg roach using your smartphone.

In a nutshell, here’s how the RoboRoach works: When you send a command from your mobile phone, the backpack sends pulses to the antenna, which causes its neurons to fire, such that the roach to think there is a wall on one side. The result? The roach turns!

Attempting to control something alive might have ethical implications, and Backyard Brains has got that covered in their ethical statement. They also explain that the roach doesn’t get shocked or hurt when the RoboRoach is on in their FAQs, so you might want to check that section out if you’re concerned about the well-being of these insects.

A minimum pledge of $100(USD) will get you one of your very own RoboRoach kits. Though you’ll have to spend at least $150 if you want them to include some live cockroaches for you to play with.

[via C|NET]

RoboRoach surgery kit comes to Kickstarter: a remote control for real cockroaches

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RoboRoach surgery kit comes to Kickstarter: a DIY remote control for real cockroaches

What DARPA does with animal test subjects behind closed doors is one thing, but here we have something else entirely: mad-scientist kits that allow anyone at home to control the movement of a real-life cockroach. Backyard Brains, the crew behind Twitter Roach, have been selling RoboRoach sets for creating cyborg insects for some time. But today, after getting as far as they can on their own, they're seeking Kickstarter funding to improve their design and develop "educational materials" to go with it. The project will go live in the next 30 minutes or so, and pledges of $100 or more will get you a surgery kit consisting of a PCB "backpack," battery and three sets of electrodes. The PCB pairs with mobile devices via the Bluetooth LE profile and a companion app delivers commands to the 'roach, allowing you to steer the creature by swiping across your screen. Cough up $150 or more and they'll send you a dozen 'roaches to get you started.

The electrodes we mention need to be implanted into the cockroach's antennae so directional triggers can be sent to the nerves within -- effectively fooling the creature into thinking it's hit an obstacle and needs to change course. This is where it starts to get uncomfortable. Backyard Brains are touting the RoboRoach as an educational tool, specifically stating that "this product is not a toy." Something that's glossed over on the Kickstarter page, however, is the allegedly painless surgery step: how you attach the electrodes to the insect. People can make their own minds up regarding the ethics of the campaign, and can start by heading to the Kickstarter source link once it goes live at 9am ET. We've also embedded an old tutorial video below we found on the company's site, which demonstrates the surgery process. Be warned: there's antenna-clipping and other mutilations involved, which make our skin crawl even more than the thought of handling the cockroaches in the first place.

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Source: Kickstarter, Backyard Brains (1), (2)

RoboRoach surgery kit comes to Kickstarter: a DIY remote control for real cockroaches

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RoboRoach surgery kit comes to Kickstarter: a DIY remote control for real cockroaches

What DARPA does with animal test subjects behind closed doors is one thing, but here we have something very different: mad-scientist kits that allow anyone at home to control the movement of a real-life cockroach. Backyard Brains, the crew behind Twitter Roach, have been selling RoboRoach sets for creating cyborg insects for some time. But today, after getting as far as they can on their own, they're seeking Kickstarter funding to improve their design and develop "educational materials" to go with it. Pledges of $100 or more will get you a surgery kit consisting of a PCB "backpack," battery and three sets of electrodes. The PCB pairs with mobile devices via the Bluetooth LE profile and a companion app delivers commands to the 'roach, allowing you to steer the creature by swiping across your screen. Cough up $150 or more and they'll send you a dozen 'roaches to get you started.

The electrodes we mention need to be implanted into the cockroach's antennae so directional triggers can be sent to the nerves within -- effectively fooling the creature into thinking it's hit an obstacle and needs to change course. This is where it starts to get uncomfortable. Backyard Brains are touting the RoboRoach as an educational tool, specifically stating that "this product is not a toy." Something that's glossed over on the Kickstarter page, however, is the allegedly painless surgery step: how you attach the electrodes to the insect. People can make their own minds up regarding the ethics of the campaign, and can start by heading to the Kickstarter source link. We've also embedded an old tutorial video below we found on the company's site, which demonstrates the surgery process. Be warned: there's antenna-clipping and other mutilations involved, which make our skin crawl even more than the thought of handling the cockroaches in the first place.

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Source: Kickstarter, Backyard Brains (1), (2)

Twitter Roach takes guidance from tweets, ushers in a terrifying 2013 (video)

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Twitter Roach takes guidance from tweets, ushers in a terrifying 2013 video

We've already seen cockroaches turned into unwitting puppets for human overlords, but never have we seen dominance quite so casual as with Brittany Ransom's recent Twitter Roach art project. While part of the exhibition, one of the insects wore a modified RoboRoach backpack with an Arduino add-on that took commands from Twitter: mentions including specific hashtags steered the roach left or right by stimulating its nerves. Yes, that meant the poor roach rarely had the dignity of seeing its master face to face, although there's some consolation in knowing that it wore the backpack for limited periods and had a required 30-second pause between instructions.

As to why Twitter Roach came to be? Ransom tells CNET she imagined the currently dormant project as a reflection of the "overstimulation" us humans encounter in a digital world. We can certainly sympathize given our livelihoods, although its existence makes us nervous about 2013. If we're fighting off remote-controlled insect armies a year from now, we'll have to admit we had fair warning.

Continue reading Twitter Roach takes guidance from tweets, ushers in a terrifying 2013 (video)

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Via: CNET

Source: Chicago Artists' Coalition