Your Own Personal Robot, Straight from the Printer
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Through a $10 million grant from the National Science Foundation, the five-year project, “An Expedition in Computing for Compiling Printable Programmable Machines,” aims to develop a desktop technology that would make it possible to design, customize, and print a specialized robot. The project is spearheaded by Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory Professor Daniela Rus and unites researchers from MIT, Penn, and Harvard.
From MIT News:[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRVnxbO69pY&w=500&h=254] Robotic creation is typically an expensive and complicated technical process. An inexpensive, functioning 3-D robot could have potential applications in areas ranging from cleaning behind a refrigerator to exploring a contaminated area. Two prototype machines have already been designed: an insect-like robot that could aid emergency workers and a gripping robot that could assist people with limited mobility.Researchers hope to create a platform that would allow an individual to identify a household problem that needs assistance; then head to a local printing store to select a blueprint from a library of robotic designs; and then customize an easy-to-use robotic device that could solve the problem. Within 24 hours, the robot would be printed, assembled, fully programmed and ready for action.
From Wired:A robot would come pre-programmed to perform a set of tasks, but if a user wanted more advanced actions, he or she could build up those actions using the bot’s basic capabilities. That advanced set of commands could be programmed in a computer and beamed wirelessly to the robot. And as voice parsing systems get better, Rus thinks you might be able to simply tell your robot to do your bidding.
Comments
Marco Salazar '15
Wed, 05/09/2012 10:16am
The Center for Bits and Atoms has been working on a similar goal for the past few years. They've designed what they call a FabLab.
Beez
Wed, 05/09/2012 10:16am
When the robot printer starts printing walking robot printers...I, for one, will welcome our new robot printing overlords....
WebFABRIKA
Thu, 05/03/2012 11:47am
Looks very interesting ... :)