T8 the Bio Inspired 3D Printed Spider Octopod Robot

A very human-like robot invented by Japanese engineers

Way cool and way creepy, in a way. Some of you guys are looking at using the same facial recognition software that these engineers used.

Of Flybots And Bug Eyes: Insects Inspire Inventors

A smartphone can tell you where to get a cup of coffee, but it can't go get the coffee for you. Engineers would like to build little machines that can do stuff. They would be useful for a lot more than coffee, if we could figure out how to make them work.

But the rules of mechanics change at small scales. Friction becomes dominant; turbulence can upend a small airplane. (Read more!)

An insect's eye lets it see really well because each of its light-sensitive cells has a dedicated lens. This miniature camera, which mimics an insect eye, is made from an array of microlenses arranged on a stretchable sheet that can be inflated like a balloon to a hemispherical shape.

University of Illinois and Beckman Institute

3D-printing robots could enable solar arrays to self-fabricate in space

Getting large structures, such as solar or antenna arrays, into space is a tricky proposition, as they need to be able to fold up or contract to fit into a delivery vehicle, and then expand or be deployed in orbit. This constraint has traditionally limited the size and design of these structures, but a new type of fabrication technology may change... (Read more...!)

Cheaper Prosthetics Through 3D Printing

The Dextrus hand is the working prototype resulting from Joel Gibbard’s Open Hand Project, an open source hardware initiative that aims to lower the cost of robotic prosthetics dramatically. Dextrus is a fully-functional robotic hand... (Read more...!)

Making a robot out of the Kinect

A few years ago I noticed that researchers, programmers, and dorks alike were doing interesting things with the Kinect (a gaming console, for the unfamiliar). One thing they found the Kinect (or, rather, two Kinects working together) can do is look around objects.

Here's an article to look at several projects that have resulted from playing with the Kinect.

Vijay Kumar: Robots that fly ... and cooperate

In his lab at Penn, Vijay Kumar and his team build flying quadrotors, small, agile robots that swarm, sense each other, and form ad hoc teams -- for construction, surveying disasters and far more.