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.
Saturday, 22 October 2011
Sunday, 2 October 2011
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.
Friday, 2 September 2011
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.
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.
Monday, 29 August 2011
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.
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.
Wednesday, 17 August 2011
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.
Monday, 15 August 2011
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!
They are a musical quartet, performing in the 21st National Children's music broadcast - Preschool Division.
Until next time, keep thinking about robots!
Wednesday, 10 August 2011
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.
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