The automaton shown here was created by Haydn Davies over a period of 18 months. The piece is made of plaster of Paris, wood, brass, aluminum, steel, ball bearings, and stainless steel. It relies on servo motors, a microprocessor servo controller, a computer power supply, a miniature passive infrared sensor, and other electrical parts to perform its magic.
Zaher is on display at the Mechanical Art and Design Museum (MAD Museum), Stratford Upon Avon, England. This fantastic automaton is currently for sale.
The Sphero is robotic remote-controlled ball that can be directed with an iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, or Android device. Controlling Sphero from your mobile device is accomplished in a variety of ways including tilting and gesturing on your device.
The Sphero comes with apps for you device that allow you to play with it in different ways. They call this "Mixed-Reality Game Play" in which real objects and virtual elements are both used for a game. The possibilities seem endless. I love the idea of setting up obstacle courses for it. You could improvise a most unusual indoor miniature golf course with little more than the things already in your living room. There is also the intriguing possibility of fooling your friends and annoying your cat. The Sphero can also be programmed to perform a recorded sequence of actions so that it can then run semi-autonomously.
Check out this is acrobatic robot! The robot has a repertoire of 75 moves that include somersaults, backflips, and a variety of comical moves.
From the Advanced Acrobatic Robot description:
With a 60 MHz microcontroller, the robot has 17 servos that work in unison with an included gyro sensor and accelerometer to maintain balance and stability while providing lightning-quick movements that suggest humanoid sentience, commanded by an included wireless gamepad remote control. The points of articulation in its neck, arms, hands, legs, and feet are so precise that the robot can be commanded to pick up and hold objects with its hands, feign a soccer kick, or punch the air as if it were performing a martial arts kata-it can even bow to its audience after a performance.
The robot comes with software that works on Windows 7, XP, and 2000 allowing you to program additional actions via an included USB cable.
I was introduced to robotics and shape-memory alloys when I bought the book Stiquito for Beginners: An Introduction to Robotics and made the small hexapod robot that comes with the book as a kit. The clever little two-legged inchworm robot shown here is powered by the same Muscle Wire, also known as Nitinol. Nitinol is nickle/titanium allow that will return to a pre-defined shape when brought to specific temperatures. Heat from an electrical current causes it to contract, making this little inchworm take tiny steps. Though the Stiquito was fun to make, this robot looks like an even better introduction because the design is simple, robust, and moves along a bit better.
From the Inchworm Robot description:
Each BioMetal Fiber Walking Robot Inchworm has one strand of BioMetal Fiber. When current is applied, the fiber heats up and contracts. This pulls the Inchworm's feet apart. When the current is stopped, the fiber cools and expands. Add a little grippy fabric on the bottom of each foot and the spring to return it to its original position, and you can easily see how the little inchworm can walk along most non-slick surfaces.
Here is where you can get your own
BioMetal Fiber Walking Robot Inchworm. Here are some items for those interested in Stiquito robots. The basic Stiquito (as shown on the book cover, right) is controlled manually like the Inchworm. You have to push the button to provide the electrical current that causes the muscle wire to contract. The newer Stiquito book uses a microcontroller to provide the current automatically for a more autonomous robot.
Here's a fun little toy. When you push the button the little mechanical drummer figure drums in time to music programmed into the toy. Customers on Amazon seem to love it!
