If you ever wondered how a delivery robot’s traffic jam looks like then Chris Paukert has an answer for you. This week we will try something new: a number of links in one newsletter entry (Weekly Robotics within Weekly Robotics!). The reason we are trying it is the ROS background growing out of proportion! The most clicked last week was the WireViz - a tool for wire documentation with 15.8% opens.
1) ROS Related News.
INFO: Self Balancing Robot tries to climb stairs! - a project by jsqu4re where he put together a 3D printed ROS2 based mobile robot. Underwater robotics simulation - Project Dave initial release - a new underwater simulation for Gazebo. Project ASLAN Open Source Announcement - a new Open Source self-driving software platform coming to ROS. Fiducial Marker Based Localization System - Package Annoucement - a node for mapping and localization using fiducial markers created by the Ubiquity Robotics Team.
2) Robotic Textiles Are Fueled up and Take Action.
Wyss Institute
INFO: A team of researchers from Harvard University’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering are working on actuated textiles, working similarly to soft robots, but instead being pneumatically actuated they are inflated/deflated by temperature-dependent liquid-vapor phase changes. In the article, you can find a video showing how these systems work and how they are manufactured.
3) Tiny Weed-Killing Robots Could Make Pesticides Obsolete.
OneZero
INFO: This article posted by Matt Droter on ROS Agriculture Slack channel explains why farmers are turning to no-till farming and how robots will help, especially on weed killing.
4) Aggressive Indoor Copter Flying with SteamVR Tracking.
discuss.ardupilot.org
INFO: Peter Hall did some experiments with integrating SteamVR trackers for virtual reality gaming with a small ArduCopter based multirotor. Check out the video at the beginning of the blog post to see how well it works!
5) Spot Mini Mini OpenAI Gym Environment.
GitHub
INFO: Maurice Rahme had developed a PyBullet simulation environment for Spot Micro that can be used for reinforcment learning tasks and gait simulation.
6) RoboCup Humanoid League Videos.
RoboCup
INFO: RoboCup Humanoid League went virtual this year. In the website above you can see the event schedule, together with the links to the slides and YouTube videos. Big thanks to Lutz for letting me know about this event!
7) Publication of the Week - How To Build a Thrust Vectored Model Rocket - National Rocketry Conference 2020.
YouTube
INFO: Very interesting talk by Joe Barnard from BPS.Space on building thrust vectored rockets. I found this talk to have very interesting insights on computers, sensors, power systems that you can use on your model rocket, and how to do it. I appreciate Joe highlighting issues with electro-mechanical devices susceptible to vibrations that you might not want to put on a rocket. The part of the video I enjoyed the most is the Software and state machine design.
Sponsored
1) Humble Book Bundle: Circuits & Electronics by Morgan & Claypool.
Humble Bundle
INFO: Morgan & Claypool are here to power up your knowledge. Get ebooks like Arduino I: Getting Started, Understanding Circuits: Learning Problem Solving Using Circuit Analysis, and Engineering Principles in Everyday Life for Non-Engineers! As usual with Humble Bundle links featured by purchasing the books using the link above you can choose to support Weekly Robotics and help grow the newsletter. Thanks!
Announcements
1) PX4 Developer Summit | Virtual 2020.
Px4
INFO: On the 6th and 7th July Px4 Developer Summit will take place online. You can participate in the event for free and you will find the schedule on the event website
2) HackadayU.
Hackaday
INFO: HackadayU is an initiative by Hackaday that provides ‘hacking’ courses on various topics in a pay-as-you-wish model. All proceeds from HackadayU courses will be donated to charities that help feed, house, and educate others.