Miniature Humanoid Robot based on 19th Century Toy 14
dbowden writes: "Recently, Slashdot ran an article about a humanoid robot which runs Linux. It weighs 121 lbs, uses two 750 MHz Pentium III processors, and runs RT-Linux. It also requires a technician to push around a huge power supply that's attached to the robot by an umbilical cord.
I found another robot, Baps, which only weighs 6.6 lbs (3 Kg), runs on a single 133 MHz Pentium processor with 32 MB of RAM and 48 MB of flash memory, and is based on a child's toy that was designed in 1888. It also runs on Linux, but requires very little power to move (it can be run on CO2 cartridges), so it doesn't require an umbilical cord, or bulky power supply." (He's also got some tips on building your own below.)
"I remember playing with these toys as a child, and thinking how cool they were. For the ./ers who like to build robots, both of these walkers use McKibben Artificial Muscles instead of normal pneumatic cylinders.
I built one of these last week -- they're surprisingly easy to build, and I think they'll be fun to play with. For those with larger budgets, who don't want to build their own, The Shadow Robot Co. in the UK, and Images Co. in the US, both sell pre-made air muscles."
Re:What about memory metal? (Score:2)
The "Air Muscles" are a bit more complex, since they need a supply of compressed air, and all the associated support mechanisms (relief valves, air lines, control valves, etc), but you can make them from dirt cheap materials (the one I built cost me about $1.00, though I had to buy more materials than I ended up using -- however, I can still use those extra materials to make more muscles).
The Air muscles are also a bit easier to scale. The Shadow Robot Co. [shadow.org.uk] people claim [google.com] that four of their larger air muscles can provide enough pull to lift a car. They also have a Usenet [google.com] post that makes a lot of interesting claims about possibilities for the air muscles. Of course, these claims were made six years ago, and I personally haven't seen the air muscles being used in any of these applications, so there may be some complications that the Shadow Robot people aren't telling us about.
To imitate or not... (Score:3, Interesting)
As an example, imagine that you are creating a computer vision system. If you want to be able to have it measure aesthetic quality you may wish to rely on our knowledge of how humans judge visual pleasantness. Alternatively, if you are interested in the detection of faint patterns, you may find that humans don't do it as well as you'd like, and that an alternative approach is better.
The discussion of the Honda Robot compared to this one is sort of the same thing. Just because someone else made a robot that doesn't do things like people do them, doesn't mean the robot is not as good. If the goals are to simulate people, then yes this robot is better. If however, the goals are different, then this may not be better (e.g., it can't carry as much weight).
Re:To imitate or not... (Score:1)
You're right that your design criteria determines what is good and what isn't. However, I think almost all humanoid/bi-pedal robot designers would like to at least meet some minimum autonomous walking distance. The point of the Honda Robot comparison was the energy to weight consumption. Baps demostrates the success of the design; meaning that at least an order of maginitude of power consumption can be saved. I'm guessing that Baps could be scaled up to carry more weight. The point is that she has a method of walking that doesn't consume much power. It's the ratio that's important.
Imitation the sincerest form of Advancement SPQR (Score:1, Interesting)
WTF? (Score:1, Troll)
Why am I able to make the second post on this story? It is now Tue Oct 30 19:06:10 CST 2001
Re:WTF? (Score:1)
- CZ
Re:WTF? (Score:1)
Re:WTF? (Score:2)
My guess is that this story was too similar to the original [slashdot.org] story about Humanoid Robots to make the main page.
Slashdot Time Machine? (Score:2)
Re:WTF? (Score:1)