Some time ago, I restored my old Anycubic i3 3D printer. I took it all apart, replaced some noisy bearings, and properly lubricated the moving parts. Then, I loaded it with some PETG, broke the nozzle, switched back to PLA, went through the cycle of printing benchies, and tuning some parameters. Then, finally, I managed to get a good enough print. But then, days later, I wanted to print something, and the thing just would not have it. So I went ahead and bought a BambuLab P1S 3D printer, and the difference is night and day (I know this is a little bit of an apple-to-oranges comparison). There are no layer separations, no stringing, and no need to calibrate parameters. It all works pretty much out of the box. I will see how it performs over time, but so far, I’m really happy with the upgrade and the time it saves me.
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An Electric New Era for Atlas
A day after the retirement of Hydraulic Atlas was announced by Boston Dynamics, the new version of the robot was showcased. In the video showcased on the website, we see the robot on the ground, slowly standing up using just its legs and then approaching the camera. The video screams three things at me: very high torque density in the joints (I still can’t get over how strong they appear to be), omnidirectionality and an unlimited angular range of joints, and a touch of uncanny valley due to a range of motion. For a longer write-up on this robot, check out this IEEE Spectrum article and this interview with Robert Playter.
HelMoRo
HelMoRo (Helbling mobile robot) is a skid-steering open-source mobile robot platform developed by Helbling Technik. The robot uses Jetson Nano for brains, an RPLIDAR A2M8 and ASTRA PRO Orbbec3D camera, and an IMU for sensors. Encoder-enabled motors are a nice feature for anyone learning mobile robotics using a platform like this. I would love to see this robot being upgraded to ROS 2 in the future!
Introduction to Flow-IPC: Open Source Toolkit for Low-Latency Inter-Process Communication in C++
I recently came across this news on the a new IPC toolkit from Akamai, and thought that some might find it relevant for some C++ projects. I would certainly like to give this a shot at one point and see how it compares to alternatives.
Pogo Stick Microcopter Bounces off Floors and Walls
This work done by the Researchers at the City University of Hong Kong is very inspiring. By itself, the quadrotor could fly for 400 seconds, but having the springy leg it can bounce on allows it to extend operation time up to 20 minutes.
Publication of the Week - Autonomous Overhead Powerline Recharging for Uninterrupted Drone Operations
96 newsletter issues ago, we featured this piece on the research from the University of Southern Denmark. This paper is a follow-up work. You can see that the mulitrotor has beefed up quite a bit. The system uses a Pixhawk flight controller with offboard Raspberry Pi4 B running Ubuntu 22.04 and ROS 2 Humble that handles autonomy, perception, and gripper operation.
Business
Skyports raises in excess of $110M in Series C round led by new investment from ACS
“Skyports, the global leader in owning and operating vertiport infrastructure and flying electric drones, today announced that ACS Group, one of the world’s foremost infrastructure and construction companies, has made a substantial equity investment in Skyports, to become the largest investor in the company”.
Drone startup Zipline hits 1 million deliveries, looks to restaurants as it continues to grow
“Autonomous delivery drone startup Zipline said Friday that it hit its 1 millionth delivery to customers and that it’s eyeing restaurant partnerships in its next phase of growth”.
Locus Robotics Reaches 3 Billion Picks Milestone, Shatters Industry Records
Since we are touching on breaking records, Locus Robotics celebrates 3 billion(!!!) picks. Nice.
Announcements
SAVE THE DATE: Jazzy Jalisco Testing and Tutorial Party 2024-05-01
Soon, a new version of ROS 2 will be released and you can join a testing party on the 1st of May. See you there!
Events
- Xponential: Apr 22 - Apr 25, 2024. San Diego, United States of America
- Robotics Summit & Expo: May 01 - May 02, 2024. Boston, United States of America
- Open Hardware Summit 2024: May 03 - May 04, 2024. Montreal, Canada
- Automate: May 06 - May 09, 2024. Chicago, United States of America
- Eurobot Open 2024: May 08 - May 11, 2024. La Roche-sur-Yon, France
- ICCRE 2024: May 10 - May 12, 2024. Osaka, Japan
- ICRA 2024: May 13 - May 17, 2024. Yokohama, Japan
- ISMR (Medical Robotics) 2024: Jun 03 - Jun 05, 2024. Atlanta, Georgia, United States
- ICUAS (UAVs) 2024: Jun 04 - Jun 07, 2024. Chania, Crete, Greece
- AIRA Challenge 2024: Jun 10 - Jun 14, 2024 (ddl: Jan 07, 2024). Frankfurt am Main, Germany
For more robotic events, check out our event page.