Keith’s 16 Nov update: Just the other day I posted some new video (below) of the latest cool droid from Boston Dynamics. Now they have simply outdone themselves. Compare NASA’s tethered/hoisted R5 make stiff dance moves and then watch Boston Dynamics’ untethered and nimble Atlas DOING A BACKFLIP. NASA really needs to put their own bot research on the shelf and see what the private sector can offer. Keith’s 14 […]

Russia’s New Space Robot Can Drive, Use Tools… and Shoot https://t.co/Pt6soPSa7q #RobotsMachines #fedor #futurismvideos pic.twitter.com/IT8QT0MLfz — Maximilian (@YellowDigits) April 18, 2017 Check out NASA's Dancing #Disco Droid R5 (video) #StarWars https://t.co/ppZ02fhOJp #NASA #JourneyToMars pic.twitter.com/rglZuSkd8c — NASA Watch (@NASAWatch) December 17, 2015 No, Russia isn’t sending a Terminator robot to the space station, Ars Technica “The reports this weekend were breathless. Mashable said Russia was sending a “death dealing” robot with […]

Northeastern puts NASA’s Valkyrie space robots through its paces, TechCrunch (video) Keith’s update: At one point in this video Valkyrie stumbles and requires the cables to catch her – unlike the Boston Dynamics robots that can do just about anything and retain perfect balance and run around, jump, etc. But yes, I said “her”. Despite NASA JSC PAO’s reversal and subsequent stern denial about this NOT being a female-inspired robot, […]

Mars Rover Views Spectacular Layered Rock Formations “Curiosity took the images with its Mast Camera (Mastcam) on Sept. 8. The rover team plans to assemble several large, color mosaics from the multitude of images taken at this location in the near future. “Curiosity’s science team has been just thrilled to go on this road trip through a bit of the American desert Southwest on Mars,” said Curiosity Project Scientist Ashwin […]

Keith’s note: While NASA pours money into its goofy R5 robot that cannot walk unless it is on a hoist, controlled by a human, and is always broken, Boston Dynamics continues to make astonishing progress on autonomous robots. Imagine if you had something like this on Mars as part of a sample return mission. It would allow access to places that rovers cannot go and has dexterity unmatched by anything […]

Keith’s note: Too bad NASA JSC’s R5 Robot is broken – and when it does work it can only do so on tethers and hoists. This Boston Dynamics robot can follow you home through the woods and then clean up your garage. Or pick up moon rocks and put them inside the sample return vehicle. – Is JSC’s R5 Droid Worth Fixing?, earlier post – Too bad NASA’s R5 robot […]

ATLAS robot gets closer to walking like a human, TechGenMag “When Boston Dynamics first revealed their ATLAS robot on July 11, 2013, the bipedal humanoid robot was a clunky, slow moving contraption tethered to a jumble of cords that performed a variety of controlled tasks awkwardly. Still, we were all impressed by the ATLAS robot’s humanlike legs and frame that no doubt offered a tantalizing glimpse into the near future of robotics. Fast […]

Likely footprint of spiky dinosaur has NASA’s Md. campus on cloud nine, Washington Post “A scalloped mini-crater with four pointy toe prints pressed into ruddy rock, the putative dinosaur track juts out from a scruffy slope at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center…” NASA’s Nodosaur Track, Smithsonian “Officials at the NASA campus are already moving to protect the fossil, and they plan to bring in paleontologists to look for other dinosaur […]

GM, NASA Jointly Developing Robotic Gloves for Human Use “General Motors and NASA are jointly developing a robotic glove that auto workers and astronauts can wear to help do their respective jobs better while potentially reducing the risk of repetitive stress injuries. The Human Grasp Assist device, known internally in both organizations as the K-glove or Robo-Glove, resulted from GM and NASA’s Robonaut 2 (R2) project, which launched the first […]

Participate in a Zero-Gravity Robotics Competition–in Space!, OSTP “What could possibly make an already super cool robotics competition even better? The zero-gravity environment of space! NASA and DARPA, in cooperation with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, TopCoder, and Aurora Flight Sciences, recently announced the Zero Robotics competition, an event open to all high schools in the United States that form a team and complete the application process. The Zero Robotics […]