It’s quite possible we will restart Weekly Robotics meetups in October. This time with a more sustainable schedule. Do you know someone who should give a talk or a workshop? Let me know! As a side note, huge thanks to Artur for sending over two articles that were featured in today’s issue. As usual in the past couple of weeks, the publication of the week section is manned by Rodrigo. The most clicked link last week was the Robotics Library with 18.9% opens.
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Vanilla Robotics
vanilla.czThe other day I had a chance to meet founders of Vanilla Robotics who are working on an interesting last mile delivery mobile robot platform. The team is currently looking for a consultant with experience in Autoware projects. If Autoware or highly complex perception work is your thing then they would love to hear from you.
Machine Learning for Beginners - A Curriculum
Microsoft has a curriculum for Machine Learning that spans 24 lessons and should take 12 weeks to complete. Browsing through the repository the course seems to be very well organized, with videos, queezes and assignments accompanying each lecture.
This 3D-printed soft robotic hand beat the first level of Super Mario Bros
“A team of engineers at the University of Maryland has built a three-fingered soft robotic hand that is sufficiently agile to be able to manipulate the buttons and directional pad on a Nintendo controller—even managing to beat the first level of Super Mario Bros. as proof of concept”.
r/Robotics Showcase
redditroboticsshowcase.wordpress.com
This weekend r/Robotics showcase took place, during which the members of the r/Robotics subreddit shared their projects. In this playlist you will find the recordings from both days of presentations.
Bipedal robot makes history by learning to run, completing a 5K
Cassie recently completed a 5k run on a single battery charge. On YouTube you will also find a preparation video that lasts 45 minutes and shows the robot do the 5k on a track.
“Tweezers of sound” can pick objects up without physical contact
Researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University are looking into acoustic manipulation using a spherical array of transducers. In the experiment video you can see how an object can be captured and moved about using this method. As a side note: a magnetic levitation is a huge rabbit hole on YouTube. Highly recommend it.
14 degrees of freedom servo arm with capstan power assist
Last week we were looking at using cables for a robot arm. Here is another interesting approach: using 14 servos to drive a 14 dof manipulator using fishing lines and using a capstan to tension them.
Publication of the Week - Domino Robot Setting up 100,000+ dominos (2020)
Rodrigo: In this week’s publication, Mark Rober and Alex Baucom created a robot capable of setting up more than 100k dominos in a gymnasium and break the world record. They have documented all of this in a five articles series, in which it is possible to learn all the project’s details, design choices, and challenges. The robot could carry 300 dominos at once and place them with millimeters precision using servo motors, indoor GPS, cameras, and many other sensors.
Mat: Here is the video to the robot for the interested. What I found interesting about the design is how the team had used Marvelmind Robotics position sensors for ‘crude’ localization and IR camera + dots painted on the floor for precise localization.