| You’ve all seen and heard the robotic dancing sensation known as Keepon, and now you can own one! |
| When Keepon first debuted, bouncing along to Spoon’s “I Turn My Camera On”, the tech community went nuts! The simple, cute external appearance of this robot and it’s natural ability to bop along with music was an instant hit on Youtube. Unfortunately, beneath that elastic yellow skin was well over $20,000 worth of cutting edge robotic technology, putting this awesome robot out of reach of its fans. We saw this as a problem and answered the call to unite Keepon and it’s millions of fans globally! |
| After many months of painstaking R&D, Trossen Robotics is proud to announce the Low Cost Dancebot! Once only available to universities as a high end social development research robot, we are now offering the affordable yet equally groovy Low Cost Dancebot! This easy to build kit only takes minutes to put together, another minute to put on the Spoon song of your choice, and within seconds your Low Cost Dancebot! will be dancing along to the beat. Be the envy of your coworkers with this ultimate desktop gadget! Show off to your friends, amaze your family, and impress your employer! |
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Archive for the ‘Humanoid Robots’ Category
Big Pictures, Big Robots!
Monday, March 9th, 2009Boston.com published a great article featuring a wide variety of robots around the world. If you like robots, and you like big pretty pictures of robots, you definitely have to check it out. In style with the article, I’ll keep this short and let you check out the pictures yourself!
Give your Bioloid a new paint job!
Thursday, January 29th, 2009Okay, technically it isn’t ‘paint’. Dye would be more appropriate.
I decided that my plain old white Bioloid was boring, so I started looking around for the best way to change his color scheme. The Bioloid brackets are pretty sturdy, and thus resistant to paint and markers. I found mixed results searching through on various experimenters success in dying their brackets, but I figured I would give it a shot. After playing around with individual brackets I figured out the correct dye-water mixture, length of time, and heat, and it turned out even better than expected!
Here is a step by step tutorial detailing what it takes to get your Bioloid dyed a different color. I used black, but since the brackets are white I would assume that just about any color would work.
Note: Dye your brackets at your own risk! While I’m quite detailed in my instructions, I nor Trossen Robotics hold any responsibility if your brackets end up pink, or otherwise destroyed.
Let’s give the Robonova a hand! Err, Stand!
Monday, January 19th, 2009Humanoid robots are everywhere these days, and we encounter plenty of builders on our forums that come up with all sorts of ways to suspend their bots while creating new walking motions, dances, and kung fu moves. Hitec has decided to give their builders a hand by creating this inexpensive and awesomely designed Humanoid Robot Stand.
A humanoid robot stand for $25 bucks? We had to check it out for ourselves so we tore one open and got to building, and five minutes later our Robonova was kicking freely. We also found that the Bioloid humanoid fits pretty well, which effectively kills two birds with one stone!
Mech Warfare Featured in Issue 15 of Robot Magazine!
Friday, January 16th, 2009The Mech Warfare competition, which was founded right here at the Trossen Robotics Community (TRC), continues to gain momentum as we count down the months until the debut at Robogames 2009 this summer. Our friends over at Robot Magazine had caught word of the competition, as well as the viral excitement of the builders involved, and asked me to write up an article outlining the competition, the rules, and the participants and their Mechs.
For those of you who may not have heard of Mech Warfare yet, it is a robotic competition in which participants construct remotely piloted walking robots armed with airsoft guns and other weapons to duke it out in an urban style arena. Think of it as small scale R/C MechWarrior.
If you’d like to check out the article, you can pick up the current issue of Robot Magazine in most major bookstores or order it online from our store. For more information on the Mech Warfare event, check out the Official Site and the Mech Warfare Forums. We hope to see you and your Mech at Robogames 2009!
Trossen Robotics at CES 2009!
Tuesday, January 13th, 2009“You’re going to pay me to go to Vegas? And I get to attend CES? Stop screwing with my emotions!”
I honestly thought my boss was just pulling my chain at first.
Being my first year to attend the Consumer Electronics Show I was quite excited to say the least. I had overheard someone on the shuttle claiming that attendance would be down 10-15%, but when you factor in that up to 150,000 people have attended this in the past… 10-15% was trivial, there were still a LOT of people here. Arriving at the event and seeing a vast crowd of people out front of the main exhibition halls made the enormous size of this event hit home.
At first I wandered the main hall, then ended up in the south hall, and then realized I had just lost 3 hours in what felt like 30 minutes. Electronics as far as the eye could see, multi-story booths (yes, some of the booths had stairs), and rivers of people flowing in every direction. Finally I found a map and figured out that I actually needed to be about 3 miles away at the Sands Expo Center to find the Robotics Tech Zone.
Anybots‘ booth immediately caught my attention: boasting a slick new telepresence robot, QA. This is taking telepresence a step further, in that QA actually stands about as tall as a human and acts as a physical representation for you. The concept is that if you or your company has multiple sites, and you need to say… check out the new wallpaper in your factory in China, participate at a trade show, or attend a meeting, QA grants you the ability to do so in style. You see and hear what QA does, can look and move around fluidly, and speak as if you were on site. Aesthetically QA is very slick, a robot that would easily fit into a scene from a sci-fi movie based in the future.
The crew behind MechRC also had a booth, showcasing their new Groundpounder variant as well as the their upcoming Educational Program. I got a chance to talk with Dr. Jim Wyatt and Victor Chen about their plans for the robotic line, which includes a K-12 adaptable curriculum, future variants such as the Groundpounder pictured above, and the possibilties of Laser Tag kit upgrades!
Also showcasing at the CES was WowWee, iRobot, Kowatech, Robolabs, Hagisonic, and many more. While the Robotics Techzone wasn’t as big as I had hoped, it was somewhat expected as the show is based around consumer electronics, and consumer level robots are still considered new territory. The great thing about robotics however is that there will always be more in the future!
Feel free to check out our CES 2009 Photo Gallery (and if you were there, add your own!). I focused on taking pictures of things relative to robotics seeing as though the rest of CES is covered by everyone and their grandmother. We’ll see you there next year!
Custom C Library for Bioloid Released
Friday, December 19th, 2008Matt and Stuart from the Robosavvy Forums have released a libavr/libbioloid C library for the CM5 controller, allowing you to program your CM-5 Bioloid Controller directly in C. It’s a work in progress still, but it’s always great to see grassroots projects like this come to life. Programming the CM-5 in C has been possible for some time, but it is somewhat of a convoluted process. The project creators are setting out to demystify the process as well as provide a working library of commands to make custom programming of the Bioloid that much easier. Great work guys! Can’t wait to see this project continue to mature!
The Bioloid continues to be a favorite among roboticists and universities alike, with it’s support community growing daily proving it to be an incredibly versatile research platform. Check out our Bioloid product page for more information!
Give an I-Sobot for the Holidays!
Wednesday, December 17th, 2008When we announced that we would be cutting the I-Sobot’s price in half, making it only $95.99, our initial pre=orders sold out before we even got the shipment in! We’ve just received another shipment, so if you’re looking for an awesome hi-tech holiday gift for a geek near you (Here’s looking at you kid), this is the perfect choice! This robot debuted on the market at $300, so this is a killer deal!
What’s an I-Sobot? Well he’s the tiniest humanoid robot in production! The ultimate desk toy, this little robot stands only 6.5″ tall but is articulated as most larger humanoid bots with 17 servos, as well as voice commands, remote control, and over 100 special actions and dance routines! If you order one soon there is still time to get it in before Christmas.
MechRC Humanoid Back in Stock!
Monday, December 15th, 2008When we first announced that we had the MechRC Humanoid Robot is in stock and ready to ship, they flew off the shelves almost instantly selling out. We now have limited quantities back in stock and are shipping out immediately, just in time for the Holidays! These won’t last long, so if you’re still looking for a great robotic gift for a loved one or even yourself, pick one up quick!
We’d also like to share this awesomely over-the-top promotional video:
The New MechRC Humanoid Robot is here!
Tuesday, November 18th, 2008Trossen Robotics is proud to be the first in the United States to offer the new MechRC Humanoid Robot! This new ready-to-walk robot is a breakthrough in price to performance at only $599.99 USD.
High torque metal gear servos, LiPo batteries for longer run times, a fluid 3D visual software programming interface for easy custom motions, and a remote control unit are included. Everything needed to have your very own walking robot is included in this ready-to-walk kit! With over a hundred pre-installed motions and sounds you can get this robot throwing some dance floor shapes or some killer fighting moves straight from the box.
Also check out the MechRC’s take on the Evolution of Dance!
