A robot of an entertaining kind is placed at the "Sum of all Thrills" in the Epcot themepark in Walt Disney World Resort, asking questions of human-robot interaction and trust.
The robot is simulating a rollercoaster-ride. Before you enter, you use a virtual screen to plan your route, the speed, velocity and this sort of thrills. The ride than is simulated on the screen. If you like it, than you can approve it.
Next up you will enter the "robotic-arm". At the top there are seats and video-screens. The rollercoarster-ride will take you up. The screen is showing the ride, while the robot is shaking you, in order to simulate the physics on your human body.
This robot is clearly for fun. BUT... would YOU trust the debugger?
Designer Stefan Ulrich made a huge step in interaction design with something we used to call "robot". Look at this soft and wobbly something. A mix of pillow and robot. With this you should also be able to do "intelligent conversation". Ulrich says about the work:
Based on an intensive two month research (in cooperation with FESTO Germany and the EMPA Switzerland) concerning artificial muscles (electroactive polymers) my work reflects upon how new technologies will change future products (and society), and the way we interact with them.
Short and intense animation clip with a pure soundtrack. Directed by Filippe Lyra and William Paiva they give an insight into a strange robot-world. The liner-notes:
Just like modular synthesizers, people connect with each other in order to achieve diverse objectives. In Voltage, robots, half-human and half-synthesizer, powered by a huge amount of energy, connect to each other in an electric and chaotic trance.
This is a very short notice on a robot-festival, that is already running. From 18. - 20. 9. 2009 the Robodonien festival is taking place at Odonien, Cologne. The program look quite interesting. Let's go there!
Juan Enriquez held an TED talk and took a much more broader picture than most other experts do. He starts with taking a look at the financial markets, but then tool a deeper glance at current trends in science and technology. He merges trends from medicine, microbiology and robots to build a picture of a new step of evolution, that *is* coming.
People only interested in robots skip the first 10 minutes of this talk.
Awesome design. Who else of you have to think of good old Commander Keen? The Mintpass Pet Robot has and can the following:
The Pet Care Robot is a Wi-Fi enabled robot with 2 large eyes (cameras), a speaker, microphone and a ball for your pet to play with.
This sounds pretty ordinary, doesn't it? But... it is nothing less than a RE-VO-LU-TION! Just imagine. Here we do not have a robot, that tries to imitate some pet in a clunky manner, but this is a robot, especially designed to play with your pet. See the difference? Not designed like, but designed for! Anyway. I think your pets will need some training as well, to be entertained by this strange looking robot.
How does it work? Well, the robot is designed for home-alone pets. It can play ball with the pet and got cameras to observe the scene. With a special remote-screen you can observe the scene, i.e. from your workplace, and play with your pet from remote - in form of the robot. Totally awesome! Please hand them out the robot-innovation award for lifetime!! Get the whole concept at the Mintpass-Website.
This weblog is dedicated to fresh and alternate news on robotics. We seek for music robots, toy robots, playing and gaming robots as well as the culture of robots. This blog is powered and maintained by the Node3000-Network.
