Have you ever wanted fresh tomatoes from your garden, without the fuss or muss of actually gardening? Help could be close at hand, with robot gardeners tending MIT's vegetable gardens!

Filed under: robot, gardeners, tomatoes, garden, and plants

This entertaining video shows two humanoid robots in a realistic boxing match.

No RoboGore, just two robots doing their best to win.

Filed under: robots, video, and battle

If you're lazy and fear performing, why not design a bunch of little robot players to produce a live performance whenever you want it?

"The Trons" did exactly that, and at the link we have a video of one of his performances. He even named the individual robot players so they have personalities, of a sort.

Filed under: robot band and music

Are you sick of all the cool male robots wandering around? Think it might be time for some equal opportunity action?

Check out Sega's EMA, which features a glamorous body, walks like a lady, and kisses on command.

Come to think of it, it sounds like a male designer's idea of a lady.

Maybe someone should hire Gloria Steinem to design a robot?

D

Filed under: robot and feminine

Clever and simple if you can afford two iPhones (or iPod Touches).

The robot reads the color of light coming out from the iPhone placed on the robot, and you control the robot with another iPhone that sends the proper color to the robot's unit.

A pretty amazing, albeit expensive way to do a remote control.

Filed under: iphone, control, remote, robot, and lego

Roomba, the robot vacuum cleaner, has been around for a long time. We've seen Roombas patiently rolling through our houses, making them spic and span. We've called our Roombas pet names, and mourned them when they've broke.

But what else can you do with a Roomba? Well, you can put a cylon face to it and make it look just like the creature from Battlestar Galactica!

You can also get it to sing, play Pac-Man and much more, at the link.

(Be sure to check out the video at the very end of the linked page to see the full terror of Cylon Roombas).

Filed under: roomba and robot vacuum

In our strangely detached world it can seem like a miracle to build something out of pieces and see it work.

The Navy's Office of Naval Research gave a bunch of robot model kits to students, and they took a month's worth of classes to explore the mathematics, physics and electronics of their new creations.

Then, in the climax of the course, they were able to use a US Navy test basin to check out their creations in action!

This seems like a really great way to get students interested in science.

Filed under: science and robots

Here, watch him mow the lawn while his family enjoys a normal day in the yard.

The video is quite a sight, even though the strange creature eventually trips and falls while trying to free the mower from the clutches of a small outbuilding.

Does this portend more flexible robots? Most lawn mowing robots are boxy and stay low to the ground. I think I might prefer the boxy type based on this one's struggles, but if we are to have a Jeeves who hands us tea and gives us good advice, this is the beginning.

But will the modern day robots give us the sound romantic advice Jeeves did? That might be an entirely new frontier ...

Filed under: robots and humanoid

A robot with a heart? Sound silly? It could be a very practical idea to help calm accident victims waiting for rescue. The idea is to calm victims with a link to their rescuers and relatives, and to "be a companion" until help arrives. What that means exactly is not that well defined beyond "playing soothing music".

Here's inventor Robin Murphy posing with some of her robotic creations

Filed under: robot and rescue

This is device resurrection day, with two amazing robots that reassemble themselves automatically when kicked apart.

First up is the modular robot which stands and walks. Be a meanie by kicking it while it's walking, and the components fall apart. It can then reassemble automatically, even if you kick it again when it's down.

Check out the cool video at the link.

Filed under: modular, robot, and reassemble

The rules:

• It must be mechanical


• It must be useless


• It must make people laugh

Filed under: japan, stupid, robot, and contest

Can we get robots to fight our wars?

Here's an interesting review of today's combat robot technology: Where it is, and where it's going.

The short answer is that it will be years, if not decades, before humans are replaced on the battlefield -- even in the high-tech US Army.

Filed under: robots, combat, and military

Looking like overhead light fixtures gone mad, an automated restaurant in Germany has you order via touch screen, and the food is prepared and sent straight to your table via an automated system that reminds me of the pneumatic tubes of the past.

The link is to a very cool video showing how it's done.

I think I'd miss the personal touch ... but the real question is ...

"How's the food?"

Filed under: restaurant, automation, and robot