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Hacking the RoboSapien

Posted by michael on from the t-1000 dept.

unassimilatible writes "The RoboSapien is a cool humanoid robot toy with pretty decent dexterity and 67 pre-programmed instructions. But the folks at The University of Freiberg have made the RoboSapien autonomous by installing a Pocket PC to its head. The Pocket PC is equipped with a camera and communicates via infrared to the robot, and the whole monstrosity can be programmed with Visual C++. The full API is available for download. I, for one, welcome..."

3 of 115 comments (clear)

  1. An affirmation of C++'s flexibilty by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Though many still balk at the ease with which pointer manipulation is done through the standard library, projects such as the RoboSapien demonstrate the need for graceful performace over allocated expectations. Combining dual methodologies through lowered overhead can, and may, allow for the artificial intelligence paradigm many of use hope for.

    CB

  2. Re:Robosapien in Servo Magazine by jim_deane · · Score: 4, Interesting

    That would be Mark Tilden. He is primarily responsible for the BEAM (current site here) robots, lots of which are based on the bicore circuit and other novel simple circuits(read at the sites!).

    Rather than a top-down method of robot design, where you take a brain and make it do cool things, his idea is to decide some basic function you want to accomplish--like walking--and design the simplest circuit that is able to do that. Then pick a new function (say, seeking light) and build that circuit. Hook the two together, and now you have a walking robot that seeks light. It is a more biological method to robot evolution.

    If you like the idea of making a functioning insect-robot out of the parts from an old Walkman cassette player and a pocket calculator, you'll love BEAM robotics.

    Jim

  3. Re:Freiburg not Freiberg by Zatic · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Nice town, by the way.
    Definitly! It's nice to see my home town on slashdot :-)

    Also check out CS Freiburg, one of the world's best robotic socker teams:
    http://www.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/~robocup/