Robot Xmas Day - Hexapod time!

Being Xmas today, this is a post themed around that most Christmassy of polygons, the hexagon. (Incidentally, if you've seen any non-hexagonal snowflakes, reserve the right to get pedantic).

So a hexapod, for those of you bipods who were wondering, is something with six legs. Here's a roundup of some six-legged robots I've been getting into lately.

MorpHex
Combining balls, robots, perfect numbers and things that transform in a way that pleases me greatly, the MorpHex is a cool robot which can transform from a crazy walking hexapod crab-type thing, into a ball which can roll around. It reminds me of an armadillo or hedgehog going into a protective stance, so it can't be attacked. Just imagine the myriad possible uses of such a robot - for example... umm... well, it's pretty awesome anyway.

It apparently contains 25 servos of different types, and towards the end of the video, its creator shows how if you jam a stick into the top of it, it powers down for servicing in a way that's both cute and sad, just flopping down to the floor like it's been tranquilised. So that's the thing to remember if they ever become intelligent and try to take over. Pencils at the ready, folks.

Hexapod Dance Contest
So, as you would imagine, robot engineers like to enter their robots in competitions. And the makers of hexapods get to go to the Hexapod Championships in Austria (German text). And, every year, in a move which can only be described as genius, they hold a dance competition.

This video shows the best clips from the 2009 dance competition, including discoball hexapod, pirate head hexapod and too many other classics to name. There's also a video from 2010 here.

AQUA Hexapod
The AQUA is a model of hexapod robot that's designed for use both in water and on land. It can also walk on ice and through snow. It's pretty much the all-terrain hexapod. It's not shaped like a hexagon, unlike the other robots above, but it damn well has six legs, and can do all kinds of cool hexabusiness.

The videos below show it in various kinds of action: marching smugly on ice and clambering over snow (with its adorable little snow feet on), swimming like an elegant roboty fish, and then a brilliant clip of it walking along the beach (with its human friend nearby) and into the sea, realising it's in the sea and then starting swimming. It does much better than I usually do if the water's cold - it takes me at least ten minutes before I'll go further than ankles under.

Robot Saturday - Dancing Nao

So, the Nao (pronounced 'now') is a type of medium-sized humanoid robot, which is programmable and in fact has been mentioned here before in a roundabout way - it's used at the Robot Football World Cup in the 'standard platform' league, so you don't design the robot but you have to program it to play intelligently. They're about two feet tall, and look almost completely like you would expect a robot to do.

The big news is (I use the word 'news' in the loosest sense; it's news to me) that Nao robots have now joined the ranks of professionals, prison inmates, flashmob participants, sparkly vampire fans and this house as part of the set of things that have done Michael Jackson's Thriller dance. Video below.

Although if you ask me, this video is FAR, far scarier.

Nerdy Advent Calendars

Well, in case you haven't noticed, apparently it's Xmas already - but interestingly, it's not, and in fact it's probably about the right time to think about what advent calendar you're going to use this year. If the usual chocolate Dr Who calendar isn't quite going to cut it for you, here are my suggestions for your alternatives. WARNING: they're all a bit nerdy in some way.

Is it Christmas dot com
In what could probably be the most binary form of advent calendar, and one of my favourite websites to help maintain perspective during the commercialised Winterval season, www.isitchristmas.com provides a simple, no-nonsense way to tell whether or not it's Christmas. But not how far away it is - for that you need an actual calendar. They used to also provide an RSS feed, which was an excellent addition to my daily reader feed, and always a treat to see it come through on the day itself. Although RSS has now gone the way of the cassette tape, apparently.

Completely accurate and appropriately excited advent calendar (pdf)
This was the result of a conversation I had with a friend, regarding the practise of referring to the day before something as '_____ eve', and whether this could be stacked. I used to know someone who annually held a 'Christmas Eve Eve' party, since Christmas Eve was for family stuff. Anyway, this calendar, if each window is opened on the correct day, maintains both complete nomenclative accuracy, and expresses an appropriate level of excitement (provided you accept more exclamation marks = more excitement). Simply print both sheets onto thick card, cut around three sides on each of the windows on the top sheet and layer them, gluing appropriately so as not to bum it up. Voila!

NRICH advent calendars
NRICH, which is an excellent site full of maths puzzles and activities, has put out two advent calendars this year - one for primary and one for secondary, with fun stuff to do every day during advent. You bet I'll be looking every day. Also, the primary one looks like a TRAIN. Choo choo!

My YouTube Advent Calendar
In what can only be described as a plug, I've put together a list of my favourite (diversely themed, possibly sweary) YouTube videos, using the strict selection criteria that if it's memorable enough for me to be able to name it off the top of my head, it's gone on the list. One video will be selected randomly each day, and added to this page, which will be updated each day during advent, provided I remember and have access to the internet. I should hopefully be providing reminders as such on Twitter.

Robot Saturday - Another robot roundup

Robot posts have been thin on the ground lately (as have all kinds of posts), but this means I've been saving up all my robot related items for one huge mega-post for you all to enjoy. Enjoy!

Robot Paints Its Feelings
Well, not really, but artist and composer Ben Grosser has developed a robot which paints from a palette of 4 colours, using input from its microphone. So, the noises of what's going on in the room around it, plus the noises it makes itself while painting, are all incorporated somehow (don't ask me how; you know, using robots) into the design it is currently painting. They've also tried playing a violin at it to see what happens. It's quite hypnotic to watch. This Vimeo shows the machine in action, as well as showing some of its finished works at the end - I would totally have one of those in my house, were it not probably going to be ridiculously expensive to buy one. I love that the artist credited is 'Interactive Robotic Painting Machine'.

Someone's Made The Power Loader From Aliens
Yes, you heard me right. Well, not quite exactly, but the Raytheon Sarcos Modified Ditch Witch is probably the closest you'll get anywhere in the world today. Who could forget the scene in Aliens where Ripley rocks up in some unholy robotic suit, in order to kick the ass of some aliens? Well, compare the two videos below, and judge for yourself.

The footage of the Ditch Witch doesn't necessarily confirm whether it would be good for kicking the ass of things, but it does lift some brilliant objects, including several squares, a cylinder, and an I-section girder. It also includes a clip from my favourite film of the last decade, Real Steel.


Robot Tea Infuser

Combining my love of robots with my frankly unhealthy obsession with tea, this infuser from ModCloth grabs the sides of the cup like an adorable little robot, and creates lovely lovely tea. Don't all buy me one, that could get embarrassing. Also, we just bought far too many teabags because we forgot we already had some, so we won't be using any leaf tea for a while yet.

Robots Playing Table Tennis
I'm not going to bother to write a description for this one properly, because we all know what it's about. It's about looking at some photos of some goddamn robots playing goddamn table tennis. And isn't that all we really want, anyway?

Robot/Cake themed Xmas tree decorations

Well, if there's one thing I like as much as I like robots and cake, it's XTDs (Xmas tree decorations). So, I thought I would round up some of the nicest ones, with robot or cake themes, so you can stock up and make sure your tree is appropriately decorated for the festive season. Because nothing says Xmas like robots and cake.

To start with, Paperchase is my go-to shop for amazing Xmas ornaments, and I always try to get at least one thing there each year. This year, it looks like it's going to have to be these lovely glass robots (pictured), £12 for a box of three.

Paperchase also have some beautiful cake-based products - these glass cupcakes (£6 / set of 4) seem a bit weird and austere, but they also stock several crocheted cake-based items, one pictured below (and the obligatory Xmas pud), the nicest of which is this set of 8 cake slices (£14) which just looks adorable.

My next stop for ornaments is usually B&Q, since they've basically spotted that they can corner the market and last year had some lovely things including some nice blackboard baubles complete with chalk, which of course we wrote maths on. This year, their robot/cake selection isn't amazing - they do have two different kinds of Xmas pudding bauble (and these adorable little knitted boots) but the closest they have to robots is these metal three kings, which doesn't quite cut it.

Another favourite for high quality single ornaments is John Lewis - if you wander through their Xmas department, it's difficult not to get drawn in - and they do have some nice gingerbread man based ornaments. They also have this lovely metal Santa (£3.50), which in my mind is near to a robot.

Debenhams don't have any appropriately themed tree ornaments to speak of, but they do have this lovely porcelain robot (£15 when I saw it instore, but apparently more online).

Other than this, the only other place I can find in the high street with anything is Primark, which has a set of crackers with cupcakes on - but no decent ornaments.

My next thought would be to turn to the internet. People who aren't afraid of ordering things from America could try this amazing toy shop, Tin Toy Arcade, who appear to have an epic selection of robot shaped ornaments, all priced around £5 for individual ones and around £15 for sets of 4, although there may be some shipping costs. They're mixed in with some lovely rocket ships and atoms. I can only imagine what an epic Xmas tree that could make.

On Amazon, Kurt S Adler sells these magnificent R2D2 fairy lights ($30, also available in Yoda), as well as the traditional R2D2 nutcracker. It's also possible to find other one-offs, like this set of robot santa, reindeer and snowman, and this slightly odd robot bear.

Let me know if you find any nice pieces, and I'll add them to this post! And very possibly, my Xmas tree.

Robot Saturday: Robots > Humans

It's finally happened - in fact, I'm surprised it's taken so long. A robot has been invented which can solve a Rubik's cube faster than the current human world record.

In news which will probably devastate current world record holder, 15-year-old Feliks Zemdegs, the Cubestormer II has solved a Rubik's cube in 5.35 seconds, beating Zemdegs' record (set at the Melbourne Winter Open 2011) by 0.31 seconds. The robot is built around a Samsung Galaxy SII smartphone, and is made of four Lego units which communicate with the phone by Bluetooth.

Watch the video below, and marvel at how far robots have come - they're now strictly better than nerds. Look out, people who aren't nerds! You're next.

Cookie Bowls

Just seen this post from Lifehacker, celebrating this recipe found on the Wilton website (Wilton is a company that makes cake making products in the USA). I can't believe nobody thought of this before. Maybe someone did. I'm still impressed.

The basic premise is to take a muffin tray, turn it over, and then mould cookie dough around the backs of the indentations. When baked, this will leave you with some righteous cup-shaped cookies, the possible uses of which are myriad - although if you don't immediately fill one with ice cream, you're basically a fool (or someone who doesn't like ice cream). Other suggestions made by commenters on both sites include using them to drink milk out of (milk and cookies, taken to its logical awesome conclusion), filling them with chocolate mousse, or fruit and cream, and of course, since it's America, bacon does get mentioned. There's even an idea for a savoury version with some kind of cheese porridge. Mental.

Ultimate Blog Post - Robots AND Baking

In what will go down in history as probably the pinnacle of this blog's arcing trajectory across internet-space-time, I have basically stumbled across an item which sums up my entire purpose in this blog, whilst being incredibly funny at the same time.



In this YouTube video, a robot which bakes cookies can be seen hilariously heavy-handedly stirring a bowl of ingredients and making a mess everywhere, as well as brilliantly putting the 'cookie' in the oven and shutting the door. He also gets high-fived at the end by the person tasting the finished cookie, and responds exactly as a robot would - by remaining entirely motionless.

This completely opens up the possibilities for making cakes and biscuits in hazardous environments, such as in a war zone, during a hurricane, in a radioactive fallout zone (as long as you don't want to actually eat the cake) or in the mouth of an active volcano. In fact, in the mouth of an active volcano, you wouldn't even need the oven.

For balance, I am also including a link to this Google Image Search for 'Robot Cake', since not only does this complete the collection of baking robot and robot baking, but also shows nicely the range of ways in which people interpret 'what a robot looks like'. It's mainly agreed they're rectangular, and also apparently that they mostly smile, and then colours and accessories vary wildly.

It's a shame my birthday is so far away, really. What I'd ideally like is a robot-shaped cake, baked by a baking robot. Made of cake. Baked by a robot.

Robot Bank Holiday Monday - Robot Roundup

Another quick roundup of some excellent robot-related news I've seen this week. Firstly, a creepingly terrifying vision of a robot future where these things are just everywhere, fetching books and completing all kinds of complicated tasks all over the place.



Swarmanoid is a 'heterogeneous robotic swarm' made up of three types of robot: eye-bot, which can fly and attach itself to the ceiling, and has a camera; foot-bot, which has wheels and can transport things along the floor; and hand-bot, which can grab things, move itself up the edges of walls and thin poles, and shoot a magnetic rope to the ceiling to lift itself. In the video, the bots work together using wireless communication of some sort, and achieve their objective: to retrieve a book. As much as I agree this is a pretty harmless activity, the sci-fi fan in me is anticipating such swarms becoming sentient and taking on more complex tasks, such as retrieving THE STILLBEATING HEART OF EVERY LIVING HUMAN. Although given how long it takes them to get the book, we're probably safe. Ish.

Secondly, this fantastic infographic (I secretly have a massive thing about infographics and think that done well, they are a brilliant way to communicate facts, especially statistics, although I agree they have the potential to mislead) and this one is about ROBOTS! And contains lots of great facts about robots, so you should have a look at it.

Thirdly, this video from New Scientist of a creepy robot head which sings, looking for all the world like a slightly melted Liza Minelli but not as good at singing as her. It can apparently read musical scores written in a specific way, and will sing the words you write on the score. My favourite part is at the end of the article, where it implies such robots might soon be employed as receptionists. Shudder.

And finally, a picture of a building which looks like a robot. With a huge erection. Photo by ackoblog.

Robot Wednesday - My robot is better than your robot

In scenes reminiscent of the Brass Eye episode where celebrities encouraged you not to take cake, FIRST Robotics have asked several seriously famous musicians from the US (and Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber) to make a video describing how much they think science is amazing, and how important it is for people to sciencify and do experimentals. It's pretty funny to watch, and we can only hope that at least some people watching it will be able to stop laughing for long enough to take in the very important message that STREM (science, technology, robotics, engineering and math, which is apparently now the thing) is important, because without it dorks wouldn't have made iPhones. The FIRST Robotics robot making competition, shown for a brief clip in the middle of the video, does look fun though, and information about it can be found here.

Robot Monday - Not actually robots

In a break from form, this blog post doesn't actually feature robots, but instead some insanely well trained Korean kids who LOOK like they might be robots.



They are a musical quartet, performing in the 21st National Children's music broadcast - Preschool Division.

Until next time, keep thinking about robots!

Robot Wednesday - Hack-a-day Warzone RC Bot

Having previously discussed the use of remote controlled (or otherwise) robots in war zones, particularly for bomb detection and disposal, I was touched by this story from Hack a day, a website which celebrates, on a daily basis, people who have bodged, hacked or otherwise cobbled together bits of technology.

The story is that Sergeant Chris Fessenden, currently on a tour of duty in Afghanistan, got sent a present from his brother back in the USA, in the form of a remote control car onto which he had mounted a camera, and making it transmit to a gun-mountable LCD screen. The 'workhorse', as it is described, was sent along ahead of the humvee containing troops, in case of bombs or anything in the road ahead.

The best part is, the homemade gadget recently saved the lives of six soldiers, by tripping and detonating a 500 pound IED in the road ahead of them. The story is covered in this ABC news video and accompanying article.

Photo from Hack a day.

Baking Experiment: Veganity

Working in a building featuring several awesome vegans, it always pains me when I've baked stuff that I can't offer them one. I finally got round to looking up a vegan cake recipe, and was surprised to discover that the basic vegan cake recipe is pretty simple: water, oil, sugar and flour. This shouldn't really surprise me, since I'm sure there's an equivalent basic recipe for non-vegan cakes, but the idea that you can start from this intrigued me, and my initial thoughts were along the lines of messing with this basic premise.

This of course led to a baking experiment, and the questions which the experiment aimed to answer were:

• Does using vegetable oil based non-dairy spread work as a substitute for oil?
• What things can you add to it to make the cakes nicer?
• Can I swap the water out for other liquids?

These questions were all answered by the massive variety of vegan cakes I baked over the course of an enjoyable afternoon with a few friends round. We made some cakes using Vitalite instead of oil, we added frozen fruit, cocoa powder, walnuts, vanilla, dried cranberries, food colouring, and in a bout of awesomeness, swapped water out for fruit juice or Vimto.

The results of these many varied combinations of things are pictured below (click to enlarge). The Vitalite cakes are the ones in yellow cases (bottom right photo).

We also made a loaf tin cake in which we put mashed banana and walnuts, and I think the texture of that came out the nicest, although it was structurally not very good at staying in one piece (the top came off when I tried to get it out of the tin) and so we cut it up and put portions in individual muffin cases.

The Vimto buns with raspberries, and the grape juice with dried cranberry buns both didn't rise as well as the others, so there's a lesson for you - although I have yet to taste one, and it may be that they taste nice. Or not.

In general, it seems vegan cakes don't necessarily rise as well as regular cakes, in the absence of dairy and eggs (apparently the banana does quite well as an egg substitute, explaining the awesomeness of the banana loaf) and a lot of the crazy vegan cake recipes you see which have vinegar and all sorts in are basically designed to get them to rise better. The buns mostly rose a satisfactory amount, so I'm happy to stick to this simple recipe. Plus, I get lots of vegan points.

Robot Sunday: A robot that flies like a bird

I've only vaguely heard of TED talks before, and I was vaguely aware that they are from the TED (Technology, Engineering, Design) conference. It turns out that the conference is a massive hub for amazing intelligent people giving really interesting talks, and all of the talks have been put online for the edification and enjoyment of everyone. The length of TED talks is also limited, so that you can communicate your ideas but not waffle on and bore people. This is a concept I can fully get behind.

Speaking of concepts I can really get behind, this TED talk amazingly features SmartBird, a robot that flies like a bird. A team from Festo have replicated the motion of a bird, and produced a lightweight powerful robot imitating a herring gull, which can actually fly like a bird. If you want to see the bird flying, skip the video to around 2:00, after which you can see Markus Fischer explain the inner workings of the robot. And then wish with all your heart that you can go to next year's TED conference, because that is literally the kind of thing that goes on there.

Robot Sunday - Robot World Cup

Just in case you thought there was no real incentive to develop robot technology (there clearly is: it is that robots are fricking awesome), a fantastic example can be found in the robot world cup. Called RoboCup, it was established in 1997 and provides an annual competition for people who design and make robots to compete in several categories. The most obviously awesome aspect of this is that of designing robots which are capable of playing football (that's soccer, to anyone who is from places where football is called soccer and American football is called football).

I think it's a great way to encourage development of new robots. It has categories for different sizes and styles of robot, but the rules state they can't be remote controlled (this isn't Robot Wars, people) - the robots must contain AI and decide for themselves what to do. They communicate with each other using wireless (WLAN), and work as a team. Last year's RoboCup Soccer tournament was won by teams from Germany and Singapore. Even though there is a category for full-size humanoid robots, there's some way to go before they would be capable of taking on an actual human team. Even one which is really rubbish. Insert catty football remark here.

The 2011 RoboCup took place earlier this month in Istanbul, and featured categories other than soccer, including robots for use around the home, and robots for rescue purposes.

More information, and some cool videos of the action, can be found on Wikipedia, on the RoboCup Wiki, the 2011 RoboCup homepage, and at www.RoboCup.org.

Another baking experiment

So, this is a writeup of a cake-based experiment which now took place sufficiently long ago that I've almost completely forgotten about it, so if this writeup seems hazy on the details, that's why. The idea was to find the optimal combination of flake type, covering type and bit size for a chocolate/otherwise cornflake/otherwise cake. The combinations on trial were as follows:

• Milk chocolate, white chocolate, or melted marshmallow
• Corn flakes or bran flakes (bear with me)
• Full size flakes, or crushed up flakes.

The theory is that a) I've seen all three types of coating employed with almost unilateral success, b) bran flakes work REALLY well, since they're naturally sweet and it's a good way to hide fibre in your diet, and c) crushing up the corn flakes should in theory mean there's a higher chocolate to flake ratio, making the cakes chocolatier, which in truth can only be a good thing.

Overall the baking went well, and I was ably assisted by two other people,

who I'm sure wouldn't like to have their names associated with cookery on the internet. We had a great time crushing up cornflakes - I discovered the optimal implement to be the flat bottom of a wooden egg cup, but the end of a rolling pin came in second.

We then discovered that we'd prepared far too much cornflakes for the amount of chocolate we had. We pressed on regardless, and in retrospect probably should have put some of them back in the box. We'll do that next time - readers, I'm making mistakes here so you don't have to.

The next major discovery we made, apart from how awesome I am at making a Bain-Marie out of a bowl and a pan (skills I learned from my Mum; you never forget these kinds of things) was that marshmallow, when melted, goes FRICKING WEIRD. It becomes very sticky, and incredibly stringy, resisting all attempts to 1: transfer it from the container it's in to somewhere else and 2: mix with other substances easily. We eventually somehow subdued it enough to make it stick to some cereal products and stay in paper cases.

Overall, we basically ended up with a FRICKING SHEDLOAD of cereal based coated cake products, and kudos to the people of my immediate friends and the maths department for helping me to eat them all.

The conclusions we drew from the experiment were four-fold:

1. All of the cakes were pretty nice.
2. We could have done with more chocolate, or less cereal.
3. People avoided the bran flake ones, but when they did eat them, thought they were pretty nice.
4. Crushing up would be quite effective at making them stay together better, IF we'd used more chocolate. Which we didn't. So they crumbled everywhere.

Watch this space for further caking exploits, especially since I'm due to submit my corrections soon, at which point I'll have a LOT more free time (and thus will presumably start mucking around with baking again).

Stories worth telling are... worth a few dollars, surely?

I love being a mathematician for so many reasons, and one of them is because I find mathematics interesting, not just as a subject, but as a culture. People working within maths have proven themselves to be awesome, terrifying, unbelievably nerdy, creative, interesting, tedious and wonderful in equal parts.

For this reason, I'd be very interested to hear the results of Samuel Hansen's new project - he's planning to create a series of audio shows/podcasts which document stories from the world of mathematics. It's called Relatively Prime: Stories from the Mathematical Domain, and will make use of his existing skills in creating podcasts (as evidenced by his many many existing maths news and interview podcasts, some of which I listen to on a regular basis) and enthusiasm for the subject.

Samuel lives in Las Vegas, but I met him when he was over for the MathsJam conference last November, and it's impossible not to notice his obsession with maths and maths communication. Yes, that is a photo of him up there, stood next to some maths, just to prove his maths credentials. He has recently graduated from the University of Nevada, where he specialised in graph theory, the funnest of all the theories.

He's hoping to work on the series over the next year, and to help him fund this project, he's got a Kickstarter page on which you can pledge money to him. He needs to raise $8000 by 3rd August, and I'd recommend that if you can spare any money (even just $20, which is less than £20) you should pledge it. He even has cool rewards for people donating increasing amounts of money, including producer credits and your chance to do a voice over. I would really love to see this project happen, so head over and check out his video at least.

(Incidentally, if anyone was wondering why this blog post didn't contain any references to either robots or baked goods, your regular fix can be found here and here).

UPDATE: Samuel's Kickstarter has been funded! Watch this space (or more realistically, my twitter) for news of when his first show is out.

Robot Tuesday - Robots vs Pirates

In what can only be described as awesome, ReconRobotics has developed a robot which is used to fight pirates. That's actual pirates, which are almost like what you're thinking of but more modern and with better guns. The ReconScout Throwbot, a throwable robot which could not possibly have a better name, is a one-pound remote-controlled device equipped with a camera, which can be thrown on board a passing ship, and moves itself around and up metal walls using its magnetic wheels, to send back video footage and information about the size of pirate crew and how well-equipped they are, before pirate-fighting forces board the ship.

This article from Discover Magazine, which has a short video of the little dude in action, also says, "The Throwbot can take useful video even if it's pitch black below decks, using infrared illuminators. ReconRobotics is also developing a marsupial robot deployment system, which is exactly what it sounds like: a big robot that carries around the recon robots, then shoots them out with high precision when the time comes." Which is a shame, because I was seriously hoping they'd be deployed by ninjas riding unicorns.

Robot Monday - Robots with balls round-up

Here's a quick rundown of some recent excellent videos featuring robots, balls and/or robots with balls.

Quadrocopters Juggling

A quadrocopter is a square flat dude which has a set of rotor blades providing lift at each corner. This means that it can precisely control its position, whether by remote control, or (and this is where we get interested) using an in-built AI. Some awesome videos of quadrocopters being awesome can be found here and here. But most excitingly, someone has stuck on some badminton racket heads, and taught a couple of quadrocopters to juggle a ball! They're not perfect, and do drop it a couple of times, and what they're doing isn't strictly juggling, since they're just hitting it back and forth, but the implications for automatic badminton training machines are mind-blowing.



Rollin' Justin

In what can only be described as an attempt to replace your dad, scientists at the German Aerospace Centre have developed a robot that can play catch, and prepare coffee. It has the ability to detect an incoming object and move its arm to make a catch, including catching two balls at once with different hands. It also has sufficient fine motor control to handle the putting of the little cartridge thing into the coffee machine and making a coffee. Now, if they could only develop a robot which could make me some tea...



Balancing Robot

And finally, since all good robot roundups come in threes, here's a robot which can balance precisely on top of a ball. Despite a tantalising initial shot of it holding a stack of glasses of water on top of itself, whilst maintaining uprightness, the rest of the video demonstrates the practical uses of such an amazing robot, such as carrying heavy weights, and my favourite 'omnidirectional wheelbarrow'. It's quite a nice idea, since the ball isn't part of the robot, so could be replaced if it gets damaged. I can totally see humans learning to ballroom dance with tall versions of these guys. In suits. Robot suits.

Robot Tuesday - Robot 007

According to this article I just found in New Scientist, Lockheed Martin's Advanced Technology Laboratories at Cherry Hill, New Jersey have developed a robot which has the ability to evade detection by humans. It knows how to sneak around and change direction enough that it won't be spotted by surveillance, from sentries in both known and unknown locations.

It creates a 3D image of its environment, and calculates lines of sight, in order to avoid them. Apparently the AI isn't up to much yet, but it is being developed and this is exciting. Unless you're worried about spy robots sneaking in to your top secret base past your spy defences.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20928044.700-surveillance-robots-know-when-to-hide.html

Robot Saturday - Robot round-up

Having been part of the Big Bang Fair in London this week, I saw a couple of cool robot-based exhibits (including, but not limited to, a guy with a stall entitled 'Learning Mathematics with Robots' which is just a great concept). I have been inspired by this experience to share a couple of robot-related gems.

Hitachi develops robot that can rollerskate



He's 80cm tall, responds to voice commands and can move over uneven surfaces at up to 3.7mph. That's faster than I can move on roller skates, anyway.

http://www.techradar.com/news/world-of-tech/hitachi-reveals-roller-skating-robot-697359

Wall-climbing robot at University of Utah



If you're worried about the inevitable robot uprising, you can no longer be sure of safety if you're hiding on the roof of a building with completely smooth concrete walls with no interruption. THIS DUDE IS AFTER YOU!

http://www.unews.utah.edu/p/?r=080310-1
(Youtube Video)

And finally
Buttersafe, Tuesday 1^st March - Robot Cat

Odd Cakes

I'm visiting relatives this weekend, and was offered a taste of chocolate cake by someone who loves Marmite. As a person who is also not indifferent to Marmite in a positive direction, I was impressed by the deliciousness and nice Marmitey aftertaste. I found a recipe for a Marmite based cupcake, involving peanut butter, here, which are also topped with peanut butter.

It reminded me of a couple of other kinds of chocolate cake I have heard of/seen made which contain unexpected ingredients.

• Chocolate Guinness Cake
  
  It's possible to bake half a can of Guinness into a chocolate cake, and it still tastes pretty much like normal chocolate cake. I think you might need a little more sugar than usual to counteract the bitterness of the stout. You can also put some in the icing, if you make it carefully with icing sugar. This recipe by Nigella just has a plain cream cheese style icing, which I imagine works just as well.
  
  
  
  http://www.nigella.com/recipes/view/chocolate-guinness-cake-3086


• Courgette Chocolate Cake
  
  In the same way carrot cake manages to involve a grated vegetable without being in any way at all wrong, it's also possible to secrete an entire courgette (also grated, don't be silly) in a chocolate cake. I believe it results in a lovely moist cake which doesn't actually taste like it's got a courgette in it. I imagine it's good for getting kids to eat veg, although as someone who has a serious love of courgettes anyway, that's unnecessary for me. This recipe from BBC Good Food looks awesome, and also incorporates mixed spice which sounds even lovelier.
  
  
  
  http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/633634/chocolate-courgette-cake


• Some other ones which I haven't had much experience of but which I have found recipes for:
  
  Tomato Soup cake
  Chocolate mayonnaise cake
  
  Also worth a mention is Red velvet cake, which is commonly coloured using beetroot, and is proper well red and that.

So, hopefully you've not been sick yet at the thought of such strange combinations. If you do try making any of these, let me know how it goes. I'm inspired/tempted to make a carrot cake, once I have a bit more free time.

I bet Tim Vine would have a fit.

EDIT: Just found a recipe on Smitten Kitchen, one of my favourite recipe blogs, for Red Wine Chocolate Cake. It apparently tastes just nicely of red wine, but it works best as a thin cake - not too tall, giving smallish portions - and goes well with a nice mascarpone cream.

Robot Thursday - Can I go and live in Detroit?

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/imaginationstation/detroit-needs-a-statue-of-robocop

http://www.detroitneedsrobocop.com/

Turns out the people of Detroit are getting a new statue, erected to one of their most famous and awesome robot sons - Robocop. According to this article from KickStarter, a crowdfunding website, it's not even a made up fact. Following an amazing and inspired tweet sent to the Mayor of Detroit, and a flurry of subsequent crowdfunding, it looks like they've raised enough money and it's going to go ahead. Watch this space for updates.

Robot Tuesday - On the front line

Photo from QinetiQ @ wired.com

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/02/1-in-50-troops-robots/

Here's an article from Wired about how one in 50 U.S. troops in Afghanistan is actually a robot. It's not some terrifying undercover android scenario, but in fact there are around 2,000 different robots sent out there for bomb disposal, manning (well, roboting) checkpoints, and other cool (and, in some cases, classified) activities. It's not clear how many of the 2,000 robots are actually in active use, but there is evidence that the robots have definitely saved human lives, by going ahead and sweeping for bombs.

There's also an interesting point made that they already widely use airbots, such as unmanned scout planes, since there's less of a problem with bumping into things when you're in the air. Who knows - maybe with more developments in robots-not-bumping-into-things technology, we could see a more harrowing all-robot combat scenario, like from Terminator or something. Or, you know, just use robots to save more lives and stuff.

Superbowl Cookie Experiment

Today is Superbowl day, and this obviously calls for some kind of snack-based foodstuffs to eat whilst watching a sport we don't understand and shouting at the TV when things happen we don't understand.

I found this recipe on the internet, and immediately I had lots of ideas about ways in which to modify this recipe, using various biscuits I have here in he house. Inspired by http://www.bakeitinacake.com, the following experimental biscuits have been made:

1. Oreo cookie sandwiches, as given in the recipe above
2. Jaffa Cake cookie sandwiches, because I can
3. Malted Milk biscuit cookie sandwiches (the ones with the cows on)
4. Control batch (just normal cookies).

The cookie dough recipe I used was from here, although I'd probably try to make a slightly stiffer dough for next time, since it did melt and spread quite far horizontally, meaning the cookies looked less like those pictured in the recipe and more like UFO biscuits.


Oreo cookie sandwiches (http://twitpic.com/3x7kyt)


Jaffa Cake cookie sandwiches (http://twitpic.com/3x7lc6)


Malted Milk biscuit cookie sandwiches (http://twitpic.com/3x7lqn)


Control cookies (http://twitpic.com/3x7m1i)

(The control cookies, of course, came out awesome).

Despite their extreme width, they all tasted pretty phenomenal, due to the fact that they were made of cookie dough and incorporated other kinds of biscuit. The interior of the Oreo sandwiches (the interioreo) looks a lot like the ones in the original recipe, if you ignore the big flat round cookie bit.


Oreo cookie sandwiches, interior (http://twitpic.com/3x7m7q)


Jaffa Cake cookie sandwiches, interior (http://twitpic.com/3x7mfk)


Malted milk cookie sanwiches, interior (http://twitpic.com/3x7mvc)

So in conclusion, baking has, as always, resulted in delicious baked goods, and the addition of further existing baked goods baked into the centre of the baked goods has only improved the situation.