Some people were just born into robotics, and then some people were born to drink beer, and now there there is a happy medium,… mmmm… Beer Robots. These beer robots add a whole new dimension to practical robotics. Just think, many devices people make today require a lot of our personal time to use and maintain, but a real robot is able to help you save time and make you life that much easier. Now with beer robots, you can perfectly enjoy that ice cold beer while having a good time as well. No more having to get up out of your chair and missing the greatest moment of the sports game just to grab that one can of beer. I mean geez, what kind of world is this? Well do not worry anymore, because now people have developed the robots we have long been waiting for, introducing the Beer Robots!
The robot waitress server, Now you never have to get up again because this robot is ready to serve you, the beer drinking master. I do admit the waitress may need some redesign to look a bit more feminine, but it’ll do for now.
Now for the critical very last drop at the bottom of the glass, it’ll even shake it for you! How could you ask for anything better. Well, now that you mention it, it could be really neat if the robot set it on a conveyor belt after and sent it away right to your seat. But then again that is what the robot waitress server is for
I especially like how this beer pouring robot pulls off the bottle cap! it uses a nail off the wall of the garage to conveniently pull the cap off. Then it conveniently disposes of the excess bottles.
The Asahi Beer Pouring Robot may be a slightly more affordable robot for your beer drinking needs. Although not nearly as fascinating as the big beer pouring robots, the Asahi Beer Pouring Robot is compact and even works as a refrigerator to cool your beer before pouring you an ice cold beverage. The Asahi Beer Pouring Robot is even a production model designed for consumer use! Or consuming use, but either way I think you will be left completely satisfied.
Ahh, it always makes you feel good inside watching other people getting hurt after doing stupid things. Especially after dressing up in beer can boxes and claiming to be a beer robot. Don’t you agree?
I know all of us love watching TV and those popular football, baseball, basketball, hockey, or even girls volleyball games. But when your really getting into the game, I mean really getting into the game, it’s just such a pain to get out of your seat and get that ice cold beer…mmm. Well now a man by the name of John W. Cornwell has discovered the solution! John W. Cornwell designed a robotic beer launcher that also works as a refrigerator. The robotic beer launcher refrigerates your cans of beer and then launches the beer cans towards where you are sitting. The robotic beer launching fridge can also be remotely controlled and can launch a can with a catapult over a 13 foot distance. The robotic beer launching fridge can even be used for soda and other can sized beverages. It holds 10 beers in its magazine with 14 more in reserve to store a full case. All you have to do is use the remote control to aim the robotic beer launching fridge and then press the fire button! Then the robotic beer launching fridge is activated and uses an elevator to grab a beer and then it sends it to the catapult which launches the beer at you perfectly every time! It is built from easy to purchase parts and could even be built by you! For those of you who like the idea of never having to get up again from you couch and get an ice cold beer, then this is the device and project for you. You could even use the Parallax Propeller chip to program is with. Basic code to program the chip can be found the the Code Vault on this website. Just imagine how much this will impress you friends especially when drunk. You could save the day with your very own robotic beer launching fridge powered by the Parallax Propeller chip! The opportunities to use this at parties are endless, and it will give you an excuse to have another party. You can’t go wrong with this one.
Here is a fun little project, build your own mech computer chair and drive it around your office! The M01-Mech robotic computer chair uses a simple bi-ped mechanical walking robot design. It doesn’t move very fast, but it does prove that people can build their own complex robot designs for under $1000. That is cheap for a robot, especially considering the rising cost of building materials. And not only that the M01-Mech can even carry a person around. This walking mechanical chair uses the Parallax Basic Stamp 2 chip to control it. I recommend trying this project out yourself, the Parallax Propeller chip is overall simpler to program than the Parallax Basic Stamp II chip and it costs much less too! Just create an object for driving a a 2 legged robot around and then the code will be simple for the Parallax Propeller chip. I’d like to have my own 2 leg mech to drive around my room too! This 2 leg bi-pod mech is even a chair!
The MERTZ speaking robot is a research study at MIT University involving the social interaction of robots. The MERTZ is an active vision head robot, designed for exploring scalable learning in a social context. MERTZ is designed to be placed in public places for long periods of time and continually interact with people. The intent is to have the robot slowly learn about various correlations of objects and people. The robot may even learn to correlate objects and people with frequently uttered phoneme sequences, differentiate among people and their interaction habits, and learn to dislike some people who tend to annoy the robot. This is a very harmless robot that is more humorous than anything. From what we see here, it appears to get confused easily. I’d love to greet it myself, it even displays human-like emotions.
Introducing “Robot Wrestling V2.3.0.1 Deathmatch”, “Round 1, Fight!” In a battle to see which robot can stay standing the longest, this little red robot seems to be taking first place! This cutthroat battle can only be won once all other bots have successfully been knocked down, literally. This little red robot is only in the lightweight division, but he is capable of knocking down a large robot twice his size, and he is very athletic too. He is constantly jumping and dodging and on the offensive ready to attack whenever his master desires. What a loyal robot, how could you ask for anything more? Did you see that bodyslam? That little red robot is pure perfection I tell you.
Now it’s time for you to make one of these robots with the Parallax Propeller microprocessor chip, if you decide to make one I will too, so we can battle! I’m serious about this. It would be awesome to make one of these with the Parallax Propeller chip. Probably wouldn’t be too expensive or difficult either. I looks like they used a RC radio controller to tell the little red robot where to go and what to do next. It look like the robots just have preset routines coded into the microprocessor and when certain button combinations are pressed, the robot will perform different moves. It looks simple, and it would almost be just like the fighting games for the PC or consoles but in real life instead! The Parallax Propeller chip is the way to go.
This is for those geeks who feel this game is impossible. Now there is a guitar hero robot designed just for playing Guitar Hero! It uses color sensing on the screen to detect when to press the buttons, and it uses solenoids like fingers to press the buttons on the actual Guitar Hero guitar. It’s fascinating to watch the robot while it gets a near perfect score every time! I’m sure if they work at it a little more they could perfect it to get a perfect score every time! Or you could try making a better one using the Parallax Propeller chip. There are photodiodes on the Parallax website for color sensing in the components section. A few of those and the solenoids just might do it, but you might even be able to use servos for testing purposes (assuming you can get them to push the buttons down all the way). Have fun, and soon you’ll be able to beat all your friends!
For those of you like me, there is always a new invention coming to mind, but these ideas usually just end up on paper and stashed somewhere or forgotten. The ideal of rapid prototyping has been around for many years with very expensive machines that could easily cost 100,000 or 200,000 for basic models, but a few years ago there has been much smaller machines that are powder based verses liquid, that cost much less. Typically there is a laser that slowly solidifies a plastic liquid, or powder that fuses together, both of which were still very expensive. However, recent technology has brought rapid prototyping 3D printers to a more realistic level for consumers. The “Fab@Home” printer is the cheapest 3d printer available today. And not only that, you can build it yourself! There are even 3D Solidworks models available online for free. All you have to do is order the parts and send some of the parts to local machine shops to make the parts and then you have you very own personal 3d Printer!
There are different Fab@Home printer models. The different personal fabrication machines come in 2 different models, a single syringe tool or double syringe tools. Currently the Fab@Home printer is limited to printing gel like substances using only a syringe tool, but future models are expected to also fabricate metallic materials. I find it amazing, but the makers of the Fab@Home printer are confident that in the future you will even be able to fabricate your own batteries, using this similar rapid prototyping technology. But by “rapid prototyping” I mean the machine will do most of the work for you and you just plug things in and get a basic rough idea of what a full production model would look like. Typically rapid prototyping is still very slow relatively speaking. Even with the Fab@Home, it could take 8 hours or more to produce something. For the Fab@Home, most of that time is probably because it has to wait for previous layers to dry first. It looks like The Fab@Home creates a much messier finish than much more expensive models of rapid prototyping machines. Personally I think it needs a lot of improvement, but it looks very cool. I’m not sure I believe it yet, but they claim it’s possible in future versions to create a small robot that would walk out of the machine, and possibly self-replicating robots!
The Fab@Home website says the Model 1 design will cost you around $2300 USD before shipping. That includes all the hardware including a USB interface that you can purchase from various vendors they have already found for you. There are also places to buy pre-assembled models if you like. Just check out the link at the bottom.
Here is a cool little device that might make you think twice next time you see something flying around you head. This little flying insect is an ornithopter, a machine that tries to mimic a flapping creature. Robot bugs have gone through a lot of recent development due to continually improving micro technology. These little insects weighs only 65 milligrams and have wings that beat as many as 120 times per second! The only downfall is that it still requires power cords to fly, but it’s amazing it even works at all!
Uses for this tiny flying robot bug will mostly include reconnaissance missions for military and law enforcement applications. DARPA currently has incentives for creating these little machines for military purposes. The advantage of being so small is that it could enter buildings and houses and fly through the rooms and be equipped with full micro surveillance technology.
Some individuals are worried that these robot bugs could possibly be used in an invasion of personal privacy and a possible threat to civil rights. If the government starts using these robot bugs to spy on political activists that could lead to problems. However, there is little information about spy technology so we will possibly never know for sure.
So far experts say the technology isn’t quite good enough to produce such devices that actually function at a usable level. Most likely our technology will be there shortly, so we’ll have to just wait and see what comes out of it. Hopefully these little robot insects will by restricted to military reconnaissance, which would be a revolutionary way to perform investigations without risking the lives of our military soldiers. Crawling robots for reconnaissance are getting better, but a flying machine would greatly increase speed and access comparatively.
This type of technology is commercially available on a larger scale at most hobby shops and toy stores that sell RC radio controlled toys by a company called WowWee, the creators of the Robosapien. The Dragonfly is an ornithopter, a machine that tries to mimic a flapping creature. The Dragonfly is the first radio controlled fluttering insect. It’s flying is far from perfect, but it’s amazing it works at all. The best part is they they are durable, the one I tried crashed many times and still worked. I can’t wait for the next generation model.
Asimo is Honda’s advanced step in creating a practical household robot that will be able to perform simple to complex tasks that are tedious for humans today. ASIMO stands for “Advanced Step in Innovative Mobility”. Asimo is a humanoid robot which was first introduced in 2000, and has since gone through many developments to get where the robot is today. Asimo is currently the most advanced bi-pedal humanoid robot in development. Here is a list of complex tasks that took Honda years of development. Asimo is able to climb stairs, grasp objects and carry trays, comprehend simple voice commands and recognize a familiar face, and avoid moving obstacles. Although these tasks seem simple, you have to remember that this robot is walking on 2 legs and that is not a simple task in itself. It takes little kids a bout 2 years to comprehend walking, and just think about how many times kids fall over while trying to learn to walk. Likewise, many robots fall down, including Asimo. However, new innovative technology has proven to be much more successful as these complex tasks. The new Asimo can even run at upwards of 4 miles per hour in straight or curved paths. There is a bright future for this cute little robot, and since most of the hardware has been sufficiently developed, it mostly up to the programmers to make Asimo much much smarter.
Here is a snake for those of you that don’t like reptiles! It’s not slimy (though snakes never are), and it can’t bite, but it does move like one! Perhaps it even moves better than a snake because it knows how to roll instead of just sliding. This prototype it being studied by the Biorobotics Lab at Carnegie Mellon University. This robotic snake has the ability to climb up poles and inside of pipes and perform reconnaissance missions that no human could ever do. This snake robot is even capable of crawling, climbing, and swimming! That’s right, this robot will even climb up cracks or pipes or even swim through water like a real snake! This robot is designed using servos purchasable at hobby stores with some slight modifications. The chassis is built using a simple aluminum frame even you could make. Using common easy to purchase parts make these robots lower cost and easier to repair. Lower cost means it’s easier for people to buy them, and may possibly allow them to be commercially available. But the other cool part is that it may even be cheap enough to build your own simple prototype using the Parallax Propeller chip. The Parallax Propeller chip is perfectly suitable for this application because it even supports video which is necessary on this type of reconnaissance mission. Go for it, I think it a good idea.
These beer robots add a whole new dimension to practical robotics. Just think, many devices people make today require a lot of our personal time to use and maintain, but a real robot is able to help you save time and make you life that much easier. Now with beer robots, you can perfectly enjoy that ice cold beer while having a good time as well. No more having to get up out of your chair and missing the greatest moment of the sports game just to grab that one can of beer. I mean geez, what kind of world is this? Well do not worry anymore, because now people have developed the robots we have long been waiting for, introducing the Beer Robots!
