Friday fun: Mars:2020:Springtime

Here a hilarious piece of animation to celebrate the successful landing of the Curiosity rover on Mars:



This great piece of work by nickjsky was originally uploaded to YouTube in Aug 17, 2006.  Check out his comments regarding the video here, and give him a thumbs up for his excellent work.

Have a great weekend ~ Jim

Friday fun: Real Tracking and Shooting Portal Turret

After watching this I find myself in a quandary. Do I go and play Portal for a few hours, or do I get cracking on my Arduino project(s).



I think I'll get cracking with the Arduino.

Thanks to kss5095  for post this on Youtube.  Best of luck on your project!

Have a great weekend ~ Jim

Friday fun: How To Survive A Robot Uprising (aka Robopocalypse)

Hmm, so what about Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics?



Thanks to epipheo for post this on Youtube!

Have a great weekend ~ Jim

Friday fun: LNE - LEGO PackBot

brdavis5 built a really cool all-terrain vehicle based on the Lego NXT system called the LNE. Check out this video of the LNE as it goes through various obstacles and storm troopers:



You can find more images at: http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=229082

Have a great weekend ~ Jim

Friday fun: BigDog Beta

I thought I would finish off my binge of BigDog robot videos with this video from pantlessknights showing an early BigDog prototype (read parody)



I wonder what the BigDog left on that beach in Thailand?

Have a great weekend ~ Jim

BigDog Beach'n

Here's another video from BostonDynamics featuring the BigDog robot. This time the BigDog is strutting his stuff on a beach in Thailand:



Imagine working on a robot such as BigDog and then going to some exotic beach to test it out. Talk about dream jobs! Cheers ~ Jim

Friday fun: Boston Dynamics BIGDOG Robot

If you are in any way interested in robotics then you have to check out this video from boingboingvideo of Boston Dynamics BIGDOG Robot:



The BIGDOG is designed for military use and is one of the most advanced quadruped robots out there. It's a pretty interesting concept, and the Boston Dynamics and BIGDOG links provide a lot more information.

Have a great weekend ~ Jim

Friday fun: Cats, Robots and Vacuums, Oh My!

This video from poutamo has been around for a couple of years, but it's still cool to see a cat riding a Roomba:



Now if you could only get the cat to drive the Roomba and chase after a dot from a laser pointer.

Have a great weekend ~ Jim

The ultimate air cannon robot from Vex Robotics

A friend recently sent me a link about what has got to be the ultimate air cannon robot, and I just had to post about it!

Check out "Air Cannon Looking for Targets (Video)" from ROBOTS DREAMS!

The robot was produced by Vex Robotics, and this thing is just freaking awesome! Once you view the video in the article showing all the mechanical aspects of the robot then move on to the videos of this thing shooting. Here's a picture of the cannon from the article:



This has got to be the ultimate in cubicle warfare, but you wouldn't dare use it would you :)

This is definitely inspiration for me to get moving with my little NXT robot project, and then move on to bigger and better robotics projects. I'll definitely checking out both ROBOTS DREAMS, and Vex Robotics for lots of ideas and more great articles ~ Jim

Going slow, just getting by.

Over the last few days I've been sick and out of sorts, but I am getting back up to speed. Right now my major challenge is not letting others negativity get to me.

It's hard, but I am finding that if I involve myself in projects I find I am not so down. It's hard to stay motivated, but it's preferable to getting in a funk. Hopefully the employment picture improves after the start of the year.

Recently I've been learning more about Visual Studio 2008 Express, and moving forward with my reading. I have also been cleaning up my other blogs, so that there is a common appearance.

Maybe the end of the week, I'll have some news of more progress with the Lego NXT bot.

Bots and blogs

Here are a couple shots of the Lego NXT robot I built over the last few days. Right now I am using the canned programs that came with the kit, but over time I hope to learn C# and then use the Microsoft Robotics Studio to create new routines for the robot.


It's not a bad little bot, and the motors have more than enough power to send it flying right off the table. The robot seemed a little flimsy while I was building it, but it was sturdy enough once I finished. My one complaint is that it requires 6 AA batteries, so I need to pick up some more AA Ni-MH if I am going to get serious about working with the bot.

On other fronts I have been updating my resume, reading Head First HTML with CSS & XHTML, and updating my other blogs. I'm hoping to get some feedback on both the Cloudymidnights, and Urbanspelunkers blogs. If you have a moment, check out the blogs and let me know what you think.