From Coreyfro:

While NASA is still bragging about teleoperated robots such as DEXTRE, DARPA continues to push the boundaries on autonomous robotics.

That’s because NASA nerds (or, well, two of us here at Ames, and technically, I’m a contractor) make autonomous robots for fun in our free time!

Auto choreographing, music composing, and light show generating orbs of gleaming aluminum!

Come see Orb Swarm at Yuri’s Night!

Legs? PFT! Legs are SOOOOO Precambrian era!

There is a tentative agreement for SWARM to attend the Coachella music festival this April  25-27th in Southern California!

More info as it becomes available!

Here’s some SWARM Glamour Shots that Mark Alexander shot. It’s mid-August at the Box Shop

We created and submitted a video for the VIDA 10.0 international competition.

Get the latest Flash Player to see this player.

VIDA 10.0 is an international competition created to reward excellence in artistic creativity in the fields of Artificial Life and related disciplines, such as robotics and Artiftcial Intelligence.We are looking for artistic projects that address the interaction between “synthetic” and “organic” life”.

In previous years prizes have been awarded to artistic projects using autonomous robots, avatars, recursive chaotic algorithms, knowbots, cellular automata, computer viruses, virtual ecologies that evolve with user participation, and works that highlight the social side of Artificial Life.

This video is also available on Youtube.

A high quality version can be downloaded (mpeg4, 1kbps, 74megabytes)

A (0.5 gb) DVD quality version of this video is also available for the asking.

i’ve made progress on the path smoother.  it takes a path made from a few points and converts it into a smoothed path (using cubic curves) and waypoints along that smoothed path with times and velocities associated with the waypoints.  the waypoints are all the same distance from each other in time.  the roundedness of the curves is adjustable as it the acceleration profile.  in some cases the path comes up a little short – due to inaccuracies in guessing when to start slowing down.  in any case good enough for now.  my test images are kinda fun so i thought i’d pass those along.

-trebor

a good one.

Hey orbsters,

whiling away a slow afternoon stuck inside, daydreaming about rolling robots?  well, now you can all gaze at the juicy bits, without needing a big fancy CAD program!  Rotate, zoom,  selectively hide parts for a better view, the orb is your oyster!

I put an edrawing of the current whole orb assembly here-

http://svn.lee.org/swarm/trunk/mechanical/v0_7/integrated.EASM
(local copy)
which you can view with the free utility here-

http://www.edrawingsviewer.com/pages/products/eDrawingsViewerpage.html
(local copy)

they’ve even got a Mac version-

http://www.edrawingsviewer.com/MAC_Viewer.html

(sorry, linux… maybe VMware?)

This is great for viewing, and reality checking thoughts like “I want to put a giant speaker/flame thrower/LED array/flux capacitor on the orb here.”

The one thing I’m finding it’s not so good for is importing data into a different program.  I guess I’m still looking for a really good portable format that does real parametric solid assemblies.

-mike

The group on the playa sent back some GPS telemetry off of the prototype orb. Matt converted the data to KML format. Here are the first GPS tracks of our prototype orb on the playa!

The lines are 3 GPS tracks. The image is from an image Google Earth took during Burning Man last year. Groovey! (here’s the original .kml files)

Lisa, Michael and I have been working on building more orbs. Lisa and I have been working on an aluminum orb with all the welds on the inside; we set it down next to the one with the welds on the outside and there was no question which shows off the cool lines of the orb better. Welding the inside is a tiny bit harder than the outside but totally worth it.

We set up and tacked hemisphere #3 (of 12) in place on Sunday on the jig. Yesterday I threw a few hours at the welds. Today I’m going to finish up the orb. Tonight Lisa and I will put hemisphere #4 on the jig. :-)

I welded until I ran out of argon for the TIG last night so I’ll be filling that up today.

————————————————–

On a side note, the Box Shop has been abuzz with activity. The Serpent Mother has been being polished up for her trip to the Fire Arts Festival and then Robodock. She’s got to fit in a 40′ shipping container for her trip to Amsterdam. That container is only 60% the size of the truck she took to Burning Man in 2006!

update 6-28-07: Steve Monahan gave me a hand last night welding the top and bottom of hemisphere 4. He’s got great technique. Hemisphere 3 still needs some love because of my crappy technique.

We are going to try and weld just the interiors of the orbs. That does a great job of preserving the clean lines. We’ll see if that makes them strong enough.

Photo: That’s Lisa doing some finish work on hemisphere #3.

From Mike:

Just a brief note to let you all know that Lisa, Steve Monahan, and I
finished welding the aluminum orb last night and brought it to the Box
Shop for testing. There, Erik, Lee, Jon and I got it running and put
it through it’s paces. I’m pleased to report the test was a success!
I am confident that the current design with 1/8″ 5052-H32 aluminum is
structurally sound and rolls acceptably smoothly.

Special thanks are due to Jack Schroll, Steve Monahan, and Germ
Travis, who went out of their way to help us out in our hour of need!

Otherwise, a couple modifications were made to try to improve steering
performance, based on the feedback from many people to make it the orb
easier to roll straight and avoid a high point at the equator.

One was to cut into the equator rings (annuli) to keep them from
sticking out further than the ribs. I think this is successful, and
its my intention to move forward with this design feature.

The other was to make a elliptical cutout on all the elements near the
equator so that there is a kind of flat spot in the middle to provide
a slight centering force. The consensus last night was that at 0.2
inches of the radius, this was too extreme a cut. This self centering
tendency resulted in a significant trade off with turning ability,
logically enough. My feeling is to move forward with a more subtle
cut; I will be experimenting with the geometry to see if there is any
way to make sense of deciding the optimal balance of self-centering
and steering capability.

-mike

And a little supplement from Lee

We put in a late night Wednesday night…

– The orbs look great :-)… like something made by NASA or a benevolent alien race come to destr^H^H^H^H greet us.  Clear anodizing at the Tech Shop could keep them looking like that for a long time.
– they didn’t bend or buckle or nuffum :-) :-)
– they were designed to be a little flat at the equator to help stabilize them…. maybe they were too flat… we’re still thinking on that
– it’s pretty hard drive around smoothly. It sometimes rocks around uncontrollably…. solutions to that are forthcoming…
– some PID feedback loops have to be tweaked a little
– maybe the length of the steering motor throw has to be increased
– we didn’t try it on soft ground. Only in the shop.

That’s the most of it. I’m off to install the TIG welder :-)

Our latest toy arrive yesterday. It’s a Lincoln Electric Precision TIG 225. This will help us get the orbs together and enrich the Box Shop for years to come. After getting it installed in the Box Shop, Michael and I got some play-time (IE practice time) and all I have to say is “Weeeeee!”

Behold…

Here it is test-fit together, after hours of grinding by Ray, James, and Michael.

Tomorrow, with luck, we weld.