Link to this week’s podcast:
https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/robocurious/episodes/2018-10-26T14_09_37-07_00
Thanks for listening to the Robocurious podcast. Here are the links for this week’s notes:
FlyCroTug
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=GhrpWggIbSM
Howe and Howe Robotics
“Welcome back to the October 26 edition of Robocurious where we will be going over the top robotics news of the week.
The latest issue of Science Robotics features an interesting form of robotic biomimicry. Researchers there with help from Standford’s Biomimetics and Dextrous Manipulation Lab have created a group of bots modeled after wasps that allow them to carry many more times their own weight. The FlyCroTug drones are capable of using their environment to manipulate their environment and move objects. The hope is that this will eventually lead to drones that are capable of entering into dangerous environments and helping with reconnaissance and extraction. We’ll have a link in the show notes to the video showing these little bots opening a door. [SFX: Monarch]
In corporate robotics news today, Tektron, a Rhode Island based defense contractor, has announced plans to acquire Howe and Howe Technologies of Portland Maine. How and How builds off road autonomous vehicles and is currently in the process to sell their Ripsaw Super Tank to the US Military. Other than the fact that the Ripsaw was included in the movie Mad Max Fury Road, it is one of the coolest autonomous beasts in the world today. There are video links in the show notes on their home page.
And this week out of China, which may become a regular feature at this rate, researchers have developed a palm sized soft robot. The simple bot which looks like a wristband turns due to its center of gravity being altered when voltage is applied to the device. While we won’t be building the T-1000 anytime soon, they do hope to create fully controllable soft robots within the next ten years. The researched was published in the journal of Advanced Materials last week.
Thank you for listening to the weekly robot news on the robocurious podcast, all of the show notes and links can be found on the sponsor page at robognosis.com/blog and look out for our new expanded weekend feature coming soon.”
