Category: Robots/Drones

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Maker/Development Robots/Drones

Root programming robot helps STEM knowledge branch out

editors-choice-300x96With the world becoming increasingly modernized, the importance of having children engage in the principles of programming as early
as possible has skyrocketed. And while it’s easy to see the financial benefits of that exposure, what’s more important is the analytical and critical thinking it develops in those young minds. This is why the Root was created.

Root is a Roomba-looking robot that focuses on teaching both kids and adults valuable programming skills. The robot itself can attach itself and navigate walls or just wander about on the floor and is equipped with a variety sensors for coders to play with. The Root’s companion app has three levels. The first has a graphical interface that non-readers can use to learn basic concepts of events, sequences, loops, states, functions, priorities, timing, program stepping and debugging.

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Kids/Babies Robots/Drones

Behind its cute smile, the Plobot teaches tykes to program

The idea of teaching young children about the nuances of programming logic is quickly becoming more commonly accepted. Doing so benefits all types of skills, from visualization to problem solving, and help children confront the challenges of a rapidly developing world.

The Plobot is another in a long line of completely physical programming toys created to help children explore the world of progamming world in a very tactile way. Created by NYU robotics professor Rudi Cossovich and ex-Google engineer Sean Purser-Haskell, does away with syntax and computer screens while still educating children about algorithms, loops, conditionals, and more. Command cards are core to the Plobot experience, with each representing a block of code. Kids can tap or swipe them on Plobot’s head to string them together and create a program the robot follows, with the play card serving as an execute function.

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Robots/Drones

The Roboming’s sleek design can’t hide lack of functionality

The robot revolution is well underway, but it’s still a long way off from the stuff of science fiction books, TV and movies. For now, robots like the Roboming Fellow are filling the gap between the inevitable, more advanced creations — and does a fair job at doing so.

The Roboming Fellow is a small but sleekly designed robot built for companionship, light home security, and pets. Its calming blue LED light and pan/tilt capabilities almost give the device its own personality, so that a user’s voice commands are not only met with them being carried out but with a little nod and shake as well. Roboming can also scan and create a map of the home, useful for navigating to a user or for patrols when a user is gone.

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Robots/Drones

With Mimic, see how the robots live

Most crowdfunded robots fall in one of two camps: Either it patrols the home or is serves as a tool to better teach robotics and programming concepts. The Mimic, though, is a different beast. This rotund little robot combines robotics with elements of virtual reality to create something completely new.

That said, the Mimic is pretty small. At a little under 13 inches, it doesn’t impress at first glance. But the robot itself isn’t the draw, even though it does sport patent-pending technology — but more on that later. The Mimic really shines is when a user puts on its googles, grabs its arm controller, and places their feet on the Mimic’s foot controller. Like this, users can quite literally see what the Mimic sees and change its line of sight accordingly, naturally touch, grab and grip whatever they come across, and move its wheels in any direction. Together, it makes for a brand new experience that’s not centered around security or education.

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Robots/Drones

The Robelf is the least threatening home alarm system ever

The vision of the autonomous robot in the home is a long-time marker of the crowdfunding world. Years ago, teams around the world were trying to peddle that idea and now, it continues with better equipment and more robust feature sets.

Another entrant into the segment is the Robelf from Taiwan, an odd-faced roving home robot that features a range of abilities to help facilitate everyday life. For one, its main purpose is to serve as a home alarm system. Its moving monitoring function has it patrol the home and notify users through its Wi-Fi connection of abnormal activity with the help of its 5MP front camera. When it is low on battery, its iBeacon-based Bluetooth transmitter signals Robelf to return to it charging dock and continue monitoring from there.

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Robots/Drones

The Xpider robot houses a neural network in its tiny shell

Day after day, robots increasingly become part of the everyday fabric of connected society. They can be found in the factories manufacturing goods shipped around the world to the internet connected homes across the country. As such, it’s never been more crucial to educate people on all the ways robots can be used so that breakthroughs can be made in the field.

While the Xpider itself isn’t a revolution in robotics, the diminutive, camera-equipped robot offers those interested a very capable canvas with which to play around and discover more. It comes in two flavors, one equipped with an Arduino processor and the other sporting Intel’s Curie processor.

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Connected Objects Luggage and Bags Robots/Drones Travel

Travelmate robotic suitcase follows wherever you go while traveling

Frequent problems that travelers face, especially while on their own, include not having enough hands to carry everything and suitcases hitting other travelers’ legs while being wheeled around. And then there’s the universal problem all travelers face when trying to figure out how much a valise weighs to avoid airline charges.

Travelmate is a robotic suitcase that responds to the user’s gestures and will follow him or her around without being carried or pulled, making traveling easier. The autonomous robot companion is also smart enough to avoid any obstacles in its way thanks to its Follow Me system’s built-in sensors that detect and avoid obstacles including people and furniture. Its GPS chip helps orient the suitcase and allows users to know the location of the suitcase at all times, in conjunction with a companion app for unspecified mobile devices. Travelmate uses artificial learning and machine learning to optimize its movements, while its omni wheels allow for increased stability and range of motion.

Travelmate also has a touch-enabled lock system that scans the user’s fingerprint to open the suitcase, while a built-in scale that will accurately measure the weight of a suitcase’s contents. It touts a battery life of four hours when in full autonomous mode and up to 100 hours in stand-by mode when it’s used just like a normal suitcase. Multi- colored LED lighting is featured on all Travelmate models and informs the user of the suitcase’s battery level.

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Imaging Robots/Drones

Use your smartphone with the PadBot T1 and keep in touch

Telepresence technologies are usually marketed for business purposes, but also has huge potential for the home, connecting friends and family that may otherwise be separated. In this vein, a few telepresence robots that combine mobility and video chat capability have recently been seen in the crowdfunding circuit, all of which offer pretty similar functionality along with security monitoring.

What’s different about the PadBot T1 is that it connects to a smartphone using Bluetooth 4.0 in order to cut down on size and make it portable. This makes it a true telepresence machine for both home and work. The PadBot T1 itself features treads to make moving smooth, an anti-collision to avoid damage to it and to others, an anti-fall system to stay in one piece, and a built-in charger to keep the connected smartphone topped up.

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Imaging Robots/Drones

The Moorebot robotic assistant leaves you wanting more

The applications for robots at home, work, and business make the idea of having robotic assistants compelling, but none thus far have been truly capable of combining a truly responsive interface with personality. The closest thus far may be Amazon’s Echo, but it doesn’t get across the illusion of emotion quite like most would like it to.

The team behind the Moorebot made sure that was its main priority, designing a small, charming robot with a single, blinking eye that learns quickly and can engage in light conversation with users. It was created to work in a variety of settings with customizable, upgradeable behavior. In a shop, it can serve as a greeter and customer service agent that can answer questions about inventory, a store layout, specials, and promotions. At work, it can send messages and remind users of important events, read notes and reports, keep track of the home from afar, record video emails, and even entertain in times of boredom. At home, it’s the consummate entertainer, singing, dancing and playing with kids.

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Imaging Robots/Drones

The Jimble surveillance bot is a pregnant hoverboard that patrols your home

Much to the chagrin of the most ardent futurists, the world is still a long way off from robots being a commonplace fixture in everyday life. Still, that’s not stopping companies from trying their hardest to jumpstart the trend, especially when it comes to home security.

Despite its claim of being the “first”. the Jimble smart moving surveillance robot is another entry in a long line of vaguely similar products offering the protective benefits of a wheeled robot in the hom,  (A quick search on Backerjack immediately pokes a hole in that claim.) Looking a bit like a sawed-off Segway, Jimble doesn’t do anything spectacularly different from other surveillance robots. Like others, it has an HD camera that users can peer into their homes with supplemented by a mic to talk to whoever may be around using Wi-Fi to facilitate a first person view for users on their smart devices.

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