Robocopter On Mars

Posted on May 16, 2018 by Chief Robot

NASA is sending a robot helicopter to mars where the air is only about 1% as dense as the air on Earth. The helicopter will travel as part of the Mars Rover 2020 mission and arrive to Mars in February of 2021.

Four years of design and testing in a Mars like environment will enable the helicopter to fly in the thin air on Mars.

“The altitude record for a helicopter flying here on Earth is about 40,000 feet. The atmosphere of Mars is only one percent that of Earth, so when our helicopter is on the Martian surface, it’s already at the Earth equivalent of 100,000 feet up,” said Mimi Aung, Mars Helicopter project manager at JPL.

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Tennibot: The World’s First Robotic Tennis Ball Collector

Posted on May 8, 2018 by Chief Robot

TennibotDo you play a lot of tennis? Tired of collecting all the balls?

Then check out Tennibot, your automatic tennis ball collecting robot.

Tennibot has an 80 ball capacity bucket and a 90 minute charge let’s it run for 4 – 5 hours.

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Ava Robotics

Posted on March 13, 2018 by Chief Robot
iRobot ava 500

iRobot’s Ava 500 from 2013

Ava Robotics is a spinoff from iRobot but not a new robot.  iRobot first introduced us to Ava in 2011. Ava Robotics is being reintroduced today as it’s own company and offering up a telepresence robot that can drive itself.

Using Cisco Spark for high def video, the Ava Robotics team concentrated on mobility.  Ava is able to drive itself and comes with a mobile app.  Once the robot has mapped out it’s environment it can then move on it’s own to the desired location, while automatically avoiding people and other objects.

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Crawling Robot

Posted on March 6, 2018 by Chief Robot

Snakeskin RobotUsing snakelike skin, this robot from Harvard researcher Ahmad Rafsanjani, has the ability to crawl. Using a technique similar to origami called kirigami, the skin is created using cutting as well as folding.

The cut out skin is wrapped around a rubber cylinder which can be inflated or deflated.  A trapezoidal cutout on the skin is so far the most effect for moving the robot forward.  Looks can be deceiving.  It took Rafsanjani a year and a half to perfect the skin and robot before it worked correctly.

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Pizza Robots

Posted on February 21, 2018 by Chief Robot

zume-pizza-robotWho doesn’t like pizza?  Well a company in California called Zume is adding robots into the mix. They have a robot called Doughbot that spreads the dough into a circle in only 9 seconds. A second robot spreads the sauce around and a third robot shown here puts the dough into the oven after toppings are added.

The company has one other trick up their sleeve to compete with the big chains like Dominos or Papa John’s and that is mobile cooking.  The first time the pizza is put into the oven it is only partially baked.  It is then cooked en route by ovens in the delivery fan.  Zume hopes this will get the pizza to you faster and fresher.

The company is not all robots and still has a head chef, humans who add toppings and humans who deliver the pizza.

The company’s goal is to give you a fresh hot pizza at a reasonable price in a reasonable amount of time.

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