Pocobor.

I recently saw the below video showing a hybrid leg-wheel mobile robot developed at the National Taiwan University. The robot has two modes: (1) wheeled mode, for driving quickly and efficiently on flat terrain and (2) legged mode, for rugged or uneven terrain.

It is a pretty cool robot (particularly for the Transformers fan in all of us) and an excellent example of a creative mechatronic solution to the problem of how to maximize locomotion efficiency for a wide variety of terrains – I can’t wait to get one for my car.

I was getting into the Christmas spirit the other day, and was on the search for interesting “smart” holiday sculptures/displays when I came across a Christmas cube that actively balances on only one of its vertices. A mechatronic Christmas tree, I totally want one of these! Be sure to watch the whole video to fully appreciate how large of a balancing Christmas cube-tree it is. Also, when I got to the end credits, I noticed my old Robocup professor was the lead designer, which was really neat to learn. You can learn more about his balancing cube project here.

Have a great holiday season everyone!

As regular readers of our blog will no doubt remember, we put up a post a few months ago about mind control. Hardware for using brainwaves to trigger action outside the body is becoming better and more ubiquitous every day and we noted that it would be fascinating to watch the different kinds of applications that people could come up with. On cue, I saw an article this week about a concept bike from Parlee Cycles and Toyota. The bike combines a number of technologies including a smart phone app, biometric performance monitoring, and Neurosky and Emotiv neuro-headset technology. In concert, the system allows the rider to track their performance and, most relevantly, shift gears by thinking about it as opposed to actuating a shifter by hand. While not meant for sale, it is nevertheless interesting as an example of how people are already starting to develop creative applications for this type of hardware… George Jetson would be impressed.

A friend of mine recently sent me a link to a Kickstarter project that she thought I might appreciate. Well she was right. This project is from two engineers at MIT’s Media Lab who have created an amazing device that basically lets you connect anything to the internet, allowing you to create a “Web of Things” if you will. The interface looks pretty cool, I can’t wait to try one out. You can read more about it here.

Or better yet, check out their Kickstarter project page.

I get really excited when I find groups making electronics more accessible, more interactive, and more fun for young people. Squishy Circuits is using homemade playdough to make prototyping and exploration easy. It’s fun, simple, and a great way to facilitate learning. Playdough has come a long way since I was young; all my playdough did was act like playdough. Check it out:

I recently saw this video of a starling flock murmuration (a collective swarming behavior). In addition to being an great example of how cool nature is, I found it fascinating as an example of emergent behavior.

Emergent or complex systems are those in which complex (and hard to predict) patterns arise out of interactions based on simple rules, without a central entity controlling or affecting the system properties. The sophistication and complexity of these systems is often unintuitive based on the simplicity of the governing rules. In nature, examples other than starling flocks include ant colonies or the weather. In the sphere of human interaction, the stock market or the development of cities can be interesting case studies (though both can be affected by central planning in some cases). Complexity, by Melanie Mitchell, offers an engrossing but still layman-oriented look into emergent systems in more depth.

Though I find emergent systems interesting in and of themselves, they are also tied to some potentially groundbreaking mechatronics research. Understanding how to model and eventually even control the collective behavior of decentralized, self-organizing systems could be instrumental in the development of more sophisticated artificial intelligence and other complex systems. The capability and robustness of systems that are not dependent on the existence of or communication with any centralized intelligence authority can far exceed more traditionally designed systems, whether it is a robot with a microcontroller “brain” or an army with a concentrated command team.

Robotic swarm behavior is a very active area of research; groups worth checking out include the Orb Swarm and Swarmanoid projects. It will be fascinating to watch progress in this field going forward – maybe the next remake of The Birds will use robots instead.

I’m always on the look out for cool art pieces that incorporate engineering. When I came across the Kinetic Sculpture exhibit at the BMW museum in Munich, Germany I was very excited. It’s basically a sculpture made up of metallic balls suspended on very thin wire to give the illusion that the balls are floating. The balls can be made to move up or down via the wires to create different forms. Enjoy.

So there have been various rumors floating around the Bay Area for a few years now about mysterious projects that Google is working on in a Skunk Works-esque speculative R&D lab called Google X (sounds like a comic book). Projects that have gotten a bit of publicity include self-driving cars, space elevators, and refrigerators that automatically order groceries as you run out of food.

Recently there has been a spate of new articles about the lab, possibly in advance of an upcoming announcement about one of the projects. Many of the projects are noteworthy not just for their jaw-dropping ambition but also for the degree to which they are (or seem) unrelated to Google’s core business operations (unless a space elevator is a natural extension of AdWords). However, the thing that stuck out most to me while reading one of the articles published last week was a significant focus on the “Web of Things” (Google’s words). Broadly speaking, it sounds like one of the main areas that Google is pursuing revolves around the potential to connect more objects in our everyday lives to the internet.

Setting aside how much I love what Google is doing on a philosophical level as an engineer and innovation-phile (Mars, here we come!), I am also excited more specifically as a mechatronic systems designer. The idea of the next phase of internet evolution being one that connects people’s physical lives to the web is one that many people (*cough cough* including us) have been touting for a few years now. It also demands products and systems that are exactly the types of design projects that mechatronics is best at undertaking: systems that combine physical and electronic utility. The post linked above explores some of my thoughts on Web of Things products so I won’t beat a dead horse but it’s great to see someone like Google putting serious time and resources into these efforts and dreaming big in what they try to address. I’m looking forward to seeing what they come up with (and sign me up for one of the cars right now).

I found out today that Japan has created a system utilizing lasers that can create true 3D video. Let’s hope the Death Star isn’t next on their list.

I recently came across this video of 1936 footage from a car assembly line in Flint, Michigan. I was really impressed (and surprised) with the level of automation throughout many of the processes – I hadn’t realized that manufacturing technology had progressed so far at that time.

Although it looks like many of the processes shown are based on more purely mechanical systems than is the case today, it was inspiring to see how powerful a well-designed mechanical system can be, even without throwing electronic sensing and controls into the mix. It’s fascinating to imagine what some of the brilliant engineers of yesteryear could have cooked up with the power afforded by today’s (or tomorrow’s) technology.