mathoda.com

What if a robot were so fast it could move 200 objects around in a minute?

Fatronik has launched the most rapid robot in the world at the BIEMH (International Machine-Tool Biennial) in Bilbao. It is a cylinder with a diameter of 1200mm and a height of 250mm. Its rotational capacity covers 200º, which enables positioning an object in any orientation-position.

[The robot structure] is basically four actuators working in a co-ordinated manner … The robot has four degrees of freedom, displacements along three translations and rotates on its vertical axis.

This robot [accelerates at] 15G, enabling it to pick up and position over 200 items per minute. Its workload capacity is aimed at the manipulation of variously shaped objects up to a weight of 2 Kg.

This robot is aided by a vision system capable of guiding its movements. The vision system, available in both black and white and in colour, is responsible for locating the shape and the orientation-position of the objects and, as a function of the received programming, gives orders for the robots movements. It is also possible to co-ordinate the whole system with moving belts in such a way that the robot can pick up a moving object and also position it on a moving belt.

Finally, something that could beat my friend Ranjit Aiyagari at Egyptian Rat Screw.

I remember in AP Biology class watching with wonder as nematodes regenerated lost limbs. Humans sadly don’t regenerate appendages or nerves or pretty much anything else. Neither, to my knowledge, do any other mammals.  Why not? Somewhere on the evolutionary tree the ability was lost.

It seems farfetched that a human or any other mammal could regenerate a limb or a nerve, but a lot of things that seem farfetched are actually consistent with the way the world really works, if only you know what actions to take.  For example, researchers at MIT and Hong Kong University have now regenerated optical nerves in hamsters: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/11812319/

New turbo technology for combustion engines allows relatively small engines to accelerate a car to 60 miles per hour in under 4 seconds. Unlike modern turbo engines, they don’t have much of a lag between when you step on the pedal and when the turbo kicks in. See http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,70365-0.html?tw=rss.index. And you thought teenage kids were annoying drivers now… in 15 years as this technology gets cheaper and more widespread it may get scary…