There is no better way to learn about drones than building one. The Crazyflie 2.1 is an open source drone platform with iOS/Android support. It weighs 27g and is small enough to fit in the palm of your hand. Crazyflie 2.1 is easy to assemble and doesn’t require any soldering.
Crazyflie 2.1 has a range of 1km with Crazyradio PA. It has a Win/Linux/OSX python client. You can find out more about it here.
Meet the RoboBloq Qobo: a smart snail designed to teach kids 3+ the basics of algorithms through cards. Players will be able to construct a path for the snail to follow using simple commands. Qobo can recognize commands with the smart sensor underneath it.
Meet the PiArm: a robotic arm kit for Raspberry Pi that you can use to pick & place items and do a whole lot more. This DIY kit comes with a robotic arm featuring 6-axis digital servo motors for 360-degree rotation. The PiArm can be controlled with a smartphone or joystick.
Here is another robot that can autonomously explore crop fields and capture data on health and yield level of individual plants. Mamut gathers actionable information on crops to help growers optimize yields. It uses a bunch of sensors to generate maps automatically.
In the past few years, we have covered plenty of cool musical robots, including Shimi, here. The robot has been around since 2012. It can play music and dance along already. Now it is trained to also sing.
Shimi uses deep learning of music and motion datasets to communicate with humans. The above video shows this cute robot in action.
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Here is another educational robot designed to teach your kids new skills. MIND can be programmed via voice or its app. It gets your kids familiar with coding blocks, geometrical shapes, and other math and tech concepts.
It was just a few days ago that we covered how HaptX SynTouch, Shadow Robot Company teamed up to develop the world’s first haptic telerobotic hand system that can transmit realistic touch feedback to the operator. It uses the SynTouch BioTac sensor to detect everything your finger can, including force, vibration, and temperature.
This video shows how the Shadow Dexterous Hand enhanced with these sensors and haptic feedback can be used for cup stacking.
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Brain-controlled robot hands are nothing new. We have covered a bunch of them that can make life easier for amputees in the future. Glenn Cameron’s recent project is also wroth a look. It is a Dexi robot hand that can be controlled via a brain-computer interface.
The hand and headset cost about $2k combined. The developer is going to open the hand and software in the near future.
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The idea of using robots to make and serve coffee-based drinks is nothing new. Robotic coffee shops are going to get a whole lot smarter in the future. The b;eat2E is a 5G-powered AI robot cafe that uses a robot arm to make 47 drinks autonomously.
There are plenty of robots that can teach kids basics of coding. The Turtlebot 3 Waffle Pi is a modular platform for those more serious about robotics and programming. It comes with an Intel Joule single board computer, 360-degree LiDAR, Intel RealSense camera, and DYNAMIXEL servos for wheel.
