Robots

We love 3D printers here at Crave, but one small problem exists with the devices: They traditionally can't print sturdy thin lines. 3D printers use a layering process based on slices printed thinly and bonded together, which works well for voluminous objects, but not necessarily thin ones.

The DIWire Bender, created by New York design firm Pensa, works as a DIY wire printer that bridges the gap between 3D printers and commercial computer numerical control (CNC) wire benders. To create shapes, wire from a spool feeds into the DIwire, passes through several wheels for straightening, and leads to the three-dimensional head that bends wire as instructed. … Read more

While protesters have long taken to the streets to broadcast their messages, their words are now hitting the pavement, literally, thanks to a mobile robot that paints their tweets right on the road.

Meet the ultimate early 21st century protester, ONE Street Tweeter, a hydraulic robot that uses nontoxic, water-soluble paint to print nearly real-time tweets onto street surfaces.

One, a grassroots advocacy group that fights poverty and preventable disease, created the robot as a way to "maximize the impact of member voices to push for the positive changes we are all seeking to achieve." The Street Tweeter made itself known to the world at the G8 Summit in Camp David, Md., last week. … Read more

Robots climbing up your leg -- are you cool with that? Chinese researchers certainly are, arguing they could become electronic pets, or even "mobile" phones.

Presented this week at the 2012 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) in St. Paul, Minn., Clothbot was developed by scientists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

As seen in the video below, the machine crawls up folds in clothing, slowing making its way up trouser legs or even the back of a shirt. It uses a pair of gripper wheels to create and … Read more

Without machines, Zachary Thomason wouldn't live very long. The boy has been on a ventilator for all of his 12 years because he suffers from a rare muscle disorder that makes him extremely weak.

Until now, X-linked myotubular myopathy has prevented him from going to school regularly. But since the Paragould School District in Arkansas purchased a $5,000 VGo telepresence robot, chances are he'll become an avatar-style student soon.

Zach likes to play PlayStation, so he can remote-control the VGo, which is basically a Webcam on wheels. At 4 feet tall, it's designed to project the user's presence into a remote location with two-way audio and video, allowing for richer interaction than a phone call or stationary Webcam. … Read more

Portal found a way of taking automated gun turrets and turning them into something adorable. That's why we were super excited when we saw that someone had built a working one in real life.

As a final project for his graduate mechatronics class, a robotics student at Pennsylvania State University has built a fully functioning turret that talks, tracks movement with a laser-guided system, and fires foam bullets at its target.

The turret sees the world via a Webcam, controlled via a script written in MATLAB. Most importantly, it sings out all of the adorable phrases we've come to enjoy hearing while we're being shot at in a test chamber. … Read more

The thrill of verbally abusing Siri had pretty much petered out, and we were really ready to roll up our sleeves and whip some actual robot booty.

Now, thanks to "Shiri" -- and the University of Electro-Comunications in Tokyo -- we can. Shiri, you see, is -- to put it bluntly -- a robutt. Or, perhaps, a robo-butt. The university itself calls it "a buttocks humanoid robot that expresses various emotions with organic movements of the artificial muscles."

And, according to the embedded video, the project's purpose is twofold: to advance the "innovative use of robotics technology and its purpose," and "to raise the argument as to what perceptions will be manifested in the minds of people who communicate with Shiri." … Read more

Claire Lomas suffered a T4 spinal injury in a 2007 horse riding accident that left her paralyzed from the chest down. In 2012, she completed the London Marathon. What happened in between was the development of a robotic suit that let her tackle the challenge on her own two legs.

It took 17 days for the 32-year-old resident of Leicestershire, England, to cross the finish line. Her motivation for the marathon was to raise funds for spinal cord injury research. So far, she has raised nearly $200,000.

The robotic ReWalk suit, one of several such devices, is made by Israeli company Argo Medical Technologies. It's a powered exoskeleton full of motion sensors, rechargeable batteries, and a computer system that allows the walker to control the suit.

ReWalk lets users stand, walk, and even climb and descend stairs. Crutches are used for stability (Lomas still has use of her arms). … Read more

We all crave more interactive, slightly frightening robots, right? It's kinda thrilling. Thank the maker, then, that Sharp is coming out with pricey floor-cleaning droids that can jabber away in three languages.

The voice-controlled Cocorobo can kibitz in English, Chinese, and Japanese, even in the latter's Kansai dialect associated with the city of Osaka. It's the choice of standup comics, so this robot could come across as slightly funnier than, say, a HAL 9000.

Imagine Roomba replying to you with a bit of Texas slang. … Read more

With all the James Bond theme song-playing and tower-building quadrocopters these days, it's a little hard to get excited about new personal-size automated aerial projects. But how can you not get worked up by a bird robot that can cross a room and land gracefully on someone's hand?

Aerospace engineering researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have "duplicated the control functions that allow birds to successfully perform a soft landing--in this case, perching on a human hand."

The above video's a bit scientific for the average layman (read: me) but suffice it to say, the researchers -- Soon Jo Chung, Aditya Paranjape, and Joseph Kim -- have created a micro-aerial vehicle (MAV) that can fly nimbly across a room and then pull up at just the right moment for a soft landing at a specific place, or on someone's hand. … Read more