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.