Group items tagged

Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) has detailed the software used to make their robot dance (see some nice photos over at Pink Tentacle) in a recent press release.  The software, dubbed Choreonoid (Choreography and Humanoid), is similar to conventional computer animation software.  Users create key poses and the software automatically interpolates the motion between them.  What makes the software unique is that it also corrects the poses if they are mechanically unstable, such as modifying the position of the feet and waist, allowing anyone to create motions compatible with the ZMP balancing method.  This is especially important for robots like the HRP-4C, where complicated motions could easily cause it to fall over.

You may think that all of those crazy robot competitions that we like to cover are just fun and games, but there’s a serious side. Really, there is. For reals. Mindful of this, ROBO-ONE held the second annual Humanoid Helper Project last weekend, where teleoperated human-sized robots completed (or attempted to complete) three seemingly simple tasks, including pouring liquid from a plastic bottle into a cup, carrying ping-pong balls on a tray, and a 30 minute endurance race. I don’t know about you, but the last two would be a bit of a challenge for me, and they certainly were for the robots: