Category: Cool Stuff

Robots for humanity inspires

Henry Evans had a brain stem stroke in 2002 that left him quadriplegic. Since then he has turned to robotics to unlock his abilities. Robots For Humanity (R4H.org) is a project that chronicles Henry’s quest to find robotics solutions to augment and improve his life, and that of other people with disabilities, to “let people perform at …

Two MOOCs for robotics enrolling now

Anyone can now enrol in two robotics MOOCs, “Introduction to Robotics” and “Robotic Vision” from Peter Corke at QUT which will run in early 2015. Registration is free. Peter Corke is a professor of robotics at QUT and director of the Australian Centre for Robotic Vision, who was recently featured on the Robots Podcast. He wrote the textbook Robotics, …

Snapshot of US UAV situation

The impact on businesses of the ongoing US ban on commercial UAV operation can be seen in a snapshot of this week’s drone news. Drones are very affordable these days, and there is nothing to stop anyone purchasing a drone and deploying it for fun. But you can’t use drones in anyway for ‘commercial purposes’ …

Robot Launch 2014 finalists announced

Today we announce the six finalists from Robot Launch who will be presenting their pitches online live to a panel of expert judges on Tuesday May 20 at 10am PDT. Join us then to see who takes home the ultimate champion crown! The six highest scoring startups from our Top 30 are (alphabetically): DoBots, Duct Inspection …

Drones Social Innovation Award launches

The Drone Social Innovation Award is a new initiative of the rapidly growing Drone User Group Network (DUGN). With over 3000 members across North America, Australia and Europe, DUGN is the largest community in the world dedicated to teaching people to build and operate their own flying robots. What better way to celebrate the use of drones …

Flying Donkey Challenge – entries close February 28

Will we see flying donkeys racing around Mount Kenya with 20 kilo payloads in 2020? The dream of lifting Africa will come one step closer when the 2014 preliminary “Flying Donkey Challenge” takes place in Kenya in November, but entries, including grant applications, close on February 28. The Flying Donkey Challenge is a project of …

Unbounded launch affordable, all purpose UBR-1

Unbounded Robotics today launched UBR-1, a robot that has many of us very excited. UBR is the first robot with intelligence, manipulation and mobility for below $50k. While UBR definitely resembles a smaller, cuter PR2, the UBR is actually more sophisticated. After all, the PR2 was developed 5 years ago and a lot has changed in …

‘Design a Robot’ competitions

Didn’t get a robot entered in the DARPA grand robotics challenge (DRC)? Never mind, there are several robot design and business model competitions on at the moment, from social robots, to affordable robots, to open source humanoids. The International Conference on Social Robotics (ICSR) is running a design competition for robot companions. RoboSavvy is running …