Meet the ReFlex TakkTile 2: a robotic gripper with 3 fingers and 4 Dynamixel MX-28T motors that can handle complex grasping actions. It has sensors in the fingers, encoders in the proximal joints and IMUs in the fingertips.
Meet the OceanAlpha Dolphin 1: a water rescue robot that can move in harsh waters to save lives. It has a speed of 10 miles per hour and endurance of 30 minutes. Dolphin 1’s fog flashlight improves its visibility at night and in foggy conditions. The Dolphin 1 can right itself when upside down.
In the past few years, we have covered plenty of awesome bio-inspired robots here. Purdue’s Hummingbird Robot is also worth a look. It is the same size and shape as a hummingbird and can use its wings to navigate around obstacles.
Meet the Robotiq Wrist Camera: a smart solution for Universal Robots that can speed up pick & place tasks. It can be taught via the teach pendant and can locate many parts in a single snapshot. It has manual and automatic focus and exposure control.
Drones keep getting more advanced all the time. The most advanced ones are becoming a whole lot better at navigating through cluttered environments. ailabRPG has come up with a rapid, dynamic obstacle avoidance system with an event-based camera to allow flying robots to adapt to cluttered environments.
Robots are going to do many things for us in the future, including helping with recycling. AMP Robotics has come up with an AI guided dual-robot system for the recycling industry that increases productivity. The AMP Cortex can pick & place 160 pieces per minute. It uses machine vision and learning to recognize different colors, textures, shapes, and sizes. As the company explains:
AMP Neuron uses computer vision and machine learning to recognize different colors, textures, shapes, sizes, and patterns to identify material characteristics. Then, it directs the robots to pick and place the targeted material. The system can operate 24/7 with continuous high-precision sorting, preventing contaminants in material streams, and increasing the overall quality and purity of commodities to be reclaimed. The system is modularly designed to drop into existing facilities without requiring a major retrofit or downtime, enabling customers to quickly benefit from advanced automation.
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Here is another robot kit designed to teach kids technology and coding concepts. The Microduino Cube Robot Car comes with everything you need to put it together quickly without any soldering. It is Arduino compatible, so you can use Arduino IDE to program it.
Meet LightBee: a 3D holographic self-levitating telepresence system that displays a 3D image of the remote person’s face that move according to his/her head movements. The video is displayed as a light field across a 59-degree range. The light field is produced by an array of 45 projectors.
There is no better way to learn robotics and coding than building and programming your own robots. Robo HAT MM1 is an open source robotics and automation controller for Raspberry Pi that lets you bring your robotics projects to life faster. You can use it to create autonomous cars and drones.
