Not for the first or last time, we here at Bitter Empire have to admit that we were wrong. Despite our constant predictions, the winner of the DARPA Robotics Challenge was a humanoid robot. Specifically, Hubo the South Korean team’s ‘bot, was awarded the $2 million win! Coming in a close second, another humanoid robot! Team…
DARPA Robotics Challenge: The Robots Are Here
Well, not here, because I am not in Pomona, CA, but they are there. Or at least they better be, since the finals of the high-stakes Darpa Robotics Challenge begin tomorrow, June 5, 2015! We are so excited we can hardly stand it. Robots of all shapes and sizes1 are competing for 2 million dollars…
Darpa Robotics Challenge: Meet Walk-man
The finals of the Darpa Robotics Challenge are almost upon us! The culmination of years of research and engineering will play out before us on the 5th and 6th of June in Pomona, California. At stake, 2 million dollars for the winner and the title of the most rescue-ready robot. The purpose of the challenge is to…
Darpa Robotics Challenge: Meet Tartan Rescue’s CHIMP
Meet CHIMP, brainchild of team Tartan Rescue representing Carnegie Mellon University’s National Robotics Engineering Center. Like the other ‘bots we’ve introduced you to, CHIMP is going to compete in the DARPA Robotics Challenge being held on June 5th and 6th in California. The DARPA Robotics Challenge aims to incentivise the awesome robot makers of the…
DARPA Robotics Challenge: Team Grit’s Cog-Burn
Team Grit’s Cog-Burn is one of the weirdest of the entries in the DARPA Robotics Challenge. Reminiscent of (but literally nothing like) the eminently cool Super Ball ‘bot being developed by NASA’s Ames Center for work in space, Cog-Burn isn’t humanoid, animalistic, or even a tensegrity structure. What the hell is Cog-Burn?! Awesome. It is…
DARPA Robotics Challenge: Meet THOR-MANG
THOR-MANG SMASH! Seriously, all on its own this robot look like an enormous, lumbering hulk. Well, it is lumbering, but it really isn’t ginormous, standing only 4′ 10″ tall. And wow! This little dude looks like it’s ready to compete in the DARPA Robotics Challenge right now! But, despite this excellent video from the qualification…
DARPA Robotics Challenge: NimbRo’s Momaro
The rough and tumble nature of the real world, and especially disaster zones, has been a bit too much for our robot friends. Most robots are designed to work in tightly controlled laboratory and factory settings. DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, is hoping that their upcoming challenge will kickstart the rescue segment of the…
DARPA Robotics Challenge: NASA’s RoboSimian
In just two short months, DARPA will hold their epic robotics challenge. The challenge? To create a human-robot system to help in the case of a disaster. The finalists are selected from a pool of applicants by DARPA for their performance in a set of trials. In the final challenge: Robots will not be connected…