#cybenetics

[stevebattle]

Robovie "Dai-chan" (2011) by Vstone, Osaka, Japan. A design variant on Robovie-R3 was chosen to be Osaka's robot industry PR ambassador. "The robot "Daichan" was created in August 2011 as a robot industry PR ambassador for Osaka City, based on Robovie-R ver.3. We will utilize Robovie-R3's performance, expressiveness, design, etc. to promote Osaka as a city of robots." – Vstone.

[11korp]

___

.

.

.

4881084111

knop / 11korp

[stevebattle]

Theseus II by Shigeo Hirose, Tokyo Institute of Technology (1999). A range of Theseus in-pipe inspection vehicles were created to navigate different pipe diameters, and Theseus II was designed for the smallest pipe bore of 25mm. Like Theseus I, it uses the concept of the "whole stem drive" with drive units mounted all the way along the tether to avoid snagging. In each segment, a pair of sprung drive wheels press against opposite sides of the pipe wall to generate thrust. Its egg-shaped head, which carries a small CCD camera, is used to steer the robot at tricky bends and junctions. The head is at a fixed angle to the axis, so steering is achieved simply by rotating it to face in the desired direction and then nudging the robot forward until it follows the desired path.

[stevebattle]

Newt by Ralph Hollis (1977) is described as a “Cognitive Robot.” It has two drive wheels powered by stepper motors, and a third unpowered castor wheel located at the rear. It navigates using open-loop dead-reckoning, relying on the accuracy of the stepper motors to achieve accurate positioning. In a relatively static environment such as its wooden ‘playpen’, only intermittent sensor feedback is needed to close the control loop. To this end, it has a sensory turret that can pan 360 degrees, containing a tilting 32x32 pixel solid-state image sensor that can capture images looking directly downwards at objects. The on-board computer has an 8080 microprocessor with 24K RAM. It is programmed in FORTAN IV and the compiled code is loaded into the robot via paper tape read in by an ASR33 Teletype. Hollis was interested in how the robot could learn to interact with objects in its environment, such as the wooden blocks pictured. This early use of the term ‘Cognitive robotics’ shows Hollis’ interest in embodied perception and action; “Epistemology is the study of nature and grounds of knowledge; understanding of epistemology is crucial to any attempt to realistically implement artificial intelligence systems” Byte, June 1977.

[stevebattle]

New ASIMO by Honda (2005). The big advance with the new ASIMO is the doubling of its running speed to 6 km/h in a straight line, or 5 km/h circling (great for demos). This robot famously planted its face at the foot of the stairs at a presentation in Tokyo in 2006.

[bigdaddysnailcakes]

Izzy

            She just grinned. It’s what she always did in these types of situations. It took the edge off, made her feel in control and totally badass. Oh and it tended to really piss off the types of people who normally put her in these situations to begin with. Sure enough, this time wasn’t much of an exception.

The big guy, Bruno, she was pretty sure his name was, was grinding his metal teeth in silent, fuming, fury. The sound of metal scraping against metal from within his mouth was almost as bad as his breath was. He clenched and unclenched his big meaty fists over and over as he stared at her; unblinking and very aggravated that he was unable to send her flying across the room.

She was pretty sure of that at least. Bruno’s boss, the lanky dude in the rental tux with the cybernetic eye, seemed to be pretty intent on not letting her come to harm; at least not yet.

“Izzy Steel?” He read her name aloud off of the datapad he was holding. “Really? That’s the most made up name I ever heard. Were your parents Reconstructionist or somethin’?” He laughed. It was an annoying nasally sound and then Bruno wasn’t the only one grinding his teeth.

“Hey fuck you, man! It’s an awesome name!” Her sudden outburst made all the thugs start laughing even harder.

“So she can speak after all eh?” Bruno took a few steps closer to where she sat, tied quite tightly to that uncomfortable metal chair. He leaned down and grinned at her only inches from her face.

“You got a pretty mouth on you, ya know.” His tone was utterly revolting and the stench was overwhelming. Luckily, Izzy knew just what to do. She vomited directly into his face so suddenly that a good portion actually got into his mouth. Bruno gaged and sputtered. He staggered backward, fell down and immediately began vomiting all over himself. The rest of the thugs started laughing uncontrollably while Bruno desperately tried to compose himself.

The plan worked perfectly. By the time the thugs managed to wipe the tears from their eyes, Izzy had managed to saw through the ropes. She always knew getting that serrated finger augmentation would be useful one day. Now maybe her mother would stop complaining about it. Besides, the edges were retractable and it looked just so damn cool!

“Boss! Boss, she’s gettin’ away!” Izzy could hear Bruno yelling as she sprinted for the door to the warehouse. It was too late for the goons though. When it came to a foot chase, there wasn’t anyone who could catch Izzy Steel. She would definitely be late for dinner though, and that meant getting another lecture from her over protective grandfather. For a moment she considered going back to that uncomfortable metal chair.

“Fuck that.” She muttered to herself. “I guess I’ll take the lecture over more of Bruno’s practiced charm.” With a heavy sigh she started on the long run home. Sure enough the thugs tried to chase her down but it was a lost cause. With the way she darted down alleyways, vaulted over fences, and scaled short walls to cling onto overhangs, there was just no hope for the uncoordinated thugs.

Izzy Steel was a girl who liked to run, and she sure as shit wasn’t going to have anything as simple as an industrial fortress-city stopping her.