Tag Archives: studio
#439081 Classify This Robot-Woven Sneaker With ...
For athletes trying to run fast, the right shoe can be essential to achieving peak performance. For athletes trying to run fast as humanly possible, a runner’s shoe can also become a work of individually customized engineering.
This is why Adidas has married 3D printing with robotic automation in a mass-market footwear project it’s called Futurecraft.Strung, expected to be available for purchase as soon as later this year. Using a customized, 3D-printed sole, a Futurecraft.Strung manufacturing robot can place some 2,000 threads from up to 10 different sneaker yarns in one upper section of the shoe.
Skylar Tibbits, founder and co-director of the Self-Assembly Lab and associate professor in MIT's Department of Architecture, says that because of its small scale, footwear has been an area of focus for 3D printing and additive manufacturing, which involves adding material bit by bit.
“There are really interesting complex geometry problems,” he says. “It’s pretty well suited.”
Photo: Adidas
Beginning with a 3D-printed sole, Adidas robots weave together some 2000 threads from up to 10 different sneaker yarns to make one Futurecraft.Strung shoe—expected on the marketplace later this year or sometime in 2022.
Adidas began working on the Futurecraft.Strung project in 2016. Then two years later, Adidas Futurecraft, the company’s innovation incubator, began collaborating with digital design studio Kram/Weisshaar. In less than a year the team built the software and hardware for the upper part of the shoe, called Strung uppers.
“Most 3D printing in the footwear space has been focused on the midsole or outsole, like the bottom of the shoe,” Tibbits explains. But now, he says, Adidas is bringing robotics and a threaded design to the upper part of the shoe. The company bases its Futurecraft.Strung design on high-resolution scans of how runners’ feet move as they travel.
This more flexible design can benefit athletes in multiple sports, according to an Adidas blog post. It will be able to use motion capture of an athlete’s foot and feedback from the athlete to make the design specific to the athlete’s specific gait. Adidas customizes the weaving of the shoe’s “fabric” (really more like an elaborate woven string figure, a cat’s cradle to fit the foot) to achieve a close and comfortable fit, the company says.
What they call their “4D sole” consists of a design combining 3D printing with materials that can change their shape and properties over time. In fact, Tibbits coined the term 4D printing to describe this process in 2013. The company takes customized data from the Adidas Athlete Intelligent Engine to make the shoe, according to Kram/Weisshaar’s website.
Photo: Adidas
Closeup of the weaving process behind a Futurecraft.Strung shoe
“With Strung for the first time, we can program single threads in any direction, where each thread has a different property or strength,” Fionn Corcoran-Tadd, an innovation designer at Adidas’ Futurecraft lab, said in a company video. Each thread serves a purpose, the video noted. “This is like customized string art for your feet,” Tibbits says.
Although the robotics technology the company uses has been around for many years, what Adidas’s robotic weavers can achieve with thread is a matter of elaborate geometry. “It’s more just like a really elegant way to build up material combining robotics and the fibers and yarns into these intricate and complex patterns,” he says.
Robots can of course create patterns with more precision than if someone wound it by hand, as well as rapidly and reliably changing the yarn and color of the fabric pattern. Adidas says it can make a single upper in 45 minutes and a pair of sneakers in 1 hour and 30 minutes. It plans to reduce this time down to minutes in the months ahead, the company said.
An Adidas spokesperson says sneakers incorporating the Futurecraft.Strung uppers design are a prototype, but the company plans to bring a Strung shoe to market in late 2021 or 2022. However, Adidas Futurecraft sneakers are currently available with a 3D-printed midsole.
Adidas plans to continue gathering data from athletes to customize the uppers of sneakers. “We’re building up a library of knowledge and it will get more interesting as we aggregate data of testing and from different athletes and sports,” the Adidas Futurecraft team writes in a blog post. “The more we understand about how data can become design code, the more we can take that and apply it to new Strung textiles. It’s a continuous evolution.” Continue reading
Posted in Human Robots
#438774 The World’s First 3D Printed School ...
3D printed houses have been popping up all over the map. Some are hive-shaped, some can float, some are up for sale. Now this practical, cost-cutting technology is being employed for another type of building: a school.
Located on the island of Madagascar, the project is a collaboration between San Francisco-based architecture firm Studio Mortazavi and Thinking Huts, a nonprofit whose mission is to increase global access to education through 3D printing. The school will be built on the campus of a university in Fianarantsoa, a city in the south central area of the island nation.
According to the World Economic Forum, lack of physical infrastructure is one of the biggest barriers to education. Building schools requires not only funds, human capital, and building materials, but also community collaboration and ongoing upkeep and maintenance. For people to feel good about sending their kids to school each day, the buildings should be conveniently located, appealing, comfortable to spend several hours in, and of course safe. All of this is harder to accomplish than you might think, especially in low-income areas.
Because of its comparatively low cost and quick turnaround time, 3D printing has been lauded as a possible solution to housing shortages and a tool to aid in disaster relief. Cost details of the Madagascar school haven’t been released, but if 3D printed houses can go up in a day for under $10,000 or list at a much lower price than their non-3D-printed neighbors, it’s safe to say that 3D printing a school is likely substantially cheaper than building it through traditional construction methods.
The school’s modular design resembles a honeycomb, where as few or as many nodes as needed can be linked together. Each node consists of a room with two bathrooms, a closet, and a front and rear entrance. The Fianarantsoa school with just have one node to start with, but as local technologists will participate in the building process, they’ll learn the 3D printing ins and outs and subsequently be able to add new nodes or build similar schools in other areas.
Artist rendering of the completed school. Image Credit: Studio Mortazavi/Thinking Huts
The printer for the project is coming from Hyperion Robotics, a Finnish company that specializes in 3D printing solutions for reinforced concrete. The building’s walls will be made of layers of a special cement mixture that Thinking Huts says emits less carbon dioxide than traditional concrete. The roof, doors, and windows will be sourced locally, and the whole process can be completed in less than a week, another major advantage over traditional building methods.
“We can build these schools in less than a week, including the foundation and all the electrical and plumbing work that’s involved,” said Amir Mortazavi, lead architect on the project. “Something like this would typically take months, if not even longer.”
The roof of the building will be equipped with solar panels to provide the school with power, and in a true melding of modern technology and traditional design, the pattern of its walls is based on Malagasy textiles.
Thinking Huts considered seven different countries for its first school, and ended up choosing Madagascar for the pilot based on its need for education infrastructure, stable political outlook, opportunity for growth, and renewable energy potential. However, the team is hoping the pilot will be the first of many similar projects across multiple countries. “We can use this as a case study,” Mortazavi said. “Then we can go to other countries around the world and train the local technologists to use the 3D printer and start a nonprofit there to be able to build schools.”
Construction of the school will take place in the latter half of this year, with hopes of getting students into the classroom as soon as the pandemic is no longer a major threat to the local community’s health.
Image Credit: Studio Mortazavi/Thinking Huts Continue reading
Posted in Human Robots
#438294 Video Friday: New Entertainment Robot ...
Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your Automaton bloggers. We’ll also be posting a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months; here's what we have so far (send us your events!):
HRI 2021 – March 8-11, 2021 – [Online Conference]
RoboSoft 2021 – April 12-16, 2021 – [Online Conference]
ICRA 2021 – May 30-5, 2021 – Xi'an, China
Let us know if you have suggestions for next week, and enjoy today's videos.
Engineered Arts' latest Mesmer entertainment robot is Cleo. It sings, gesticulates, and even does impressions.
[ Engineered Arts ]
I do not know what this thing is or what it's saying but Panasonic is going to be selling them and I will pay WHATEVER. IT. COSTS.
Slightly worrisome is that Google Translate persistently thinks that part of the description involves “sleeping and flatulence.”
[ Panasonic ] via [ RobotStart ]
Spot Enterprise is here to help you safely ignore every alarm that goes off at work while you're snug at home in your jammies drinking cocoa.
That Spot needs a bath.
If you missed the launch event (with more on the arm), check it out here:
[ Boston Dynamics ]
PHASA-35, a 35m wingspan solar-electric aircraft successfully completed its maiden flight in Australia, February 2020. Designed to operate unmanned in the stratosphere, above the weather and conventional air traffic, PHASA-35 offers a persistent and affordable alternative to satellites combined with the flexibility of an aircraft, which could be used for a range of valuable applications including forest fire detection and maritime surveillance.
[ BAE Systems ]
As part of the Army Research Lab’s (ARL) Robotics Collaborative Technology Alliance (RCTA), we are developing new planning and control algorithms for quadrupedal robots. The goal of our project is to equip the robot LLAMA, developed by NASA JPL, with the skills it needs to move at operational tempo over difficult terrain to keep up with a human squad. This requires innovative perception, planning, and control techniques to make the robot both precise in execution for navigating technical obstacles and robust enough to reject disturbances and recover from unknown errors.
[ IHMC ]
Watch what happens to this drone when it tries to install a bird diverter on a high voltage power line:
[ GRVC ]
Soldiers navigate a wide variety of terrains to successfully complete their missions. As human/agent teaming and artificial intelligence advance, the same flexibility will be required of robots to maneuver across diverse terrain and become effective combat teammates.
[ Army ]
The goal of the GRIFFIN project is to create something similar to sort of robotic bird, which almost certainly won't look like this concept rendering.
While I think this research is great, at what point is it in fact easier to just, you know, train an actual bird?
[ GRIFFIN ]
Paul Newman narrates this video from two decades ago, which is a pretty neat trick.
[ Oxford Robotics Institute ]
The first step towards a LEGO-based robotic McMuffin creator is cracking and separating eggs.
[ Astonishing Studios ] via [ BB ]
Some interesting soft robotics projects at the University of Southern Denmark.
[ SDU ]
Chong Liu introduces Creature_02, his final presentation for Hod Lipson's Robotics Studio course at Columbia.
[ Chong Liu ]
The world needs more robot blimps.
[ Lab INIT Robots ]
Finishing its duty early, the KR CYBERTECH nano uses this time to play basketball.
[ Kuka ]
senseFly has a new aerial surveying drone that they call “affordable,” although they don't say what the price is.
[ senseFly ]
In summer 2020 participated several science teams of the ETH Zurich at the “Art Safiental” in the mountains of Graubunden. After the scientists packed their hiking gear and their robots, their only mission was “over hill and dale to the summit”. How difficult will it be to reach the summit with a legged robot and an exosceletton? What's the relation of synesthetic dance and robotic? How will the hikers react to these projects?
[ Rienerschnitzel Films ]
Thanks Robert!
Karen Liu: How robots perceive the physical world. A specialist in computer animation expounds upon her rapidly evolving specialty, known as physics-based simulation, and how it is helping robots become more physically aware of the world around them.
[ Stanford ]
This week's UPenn GRASP On Robotics seminar is by Maria Chiara Carrozza from Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, on “Biorobotics for Personal Assistance – Translational Research and Opportunities for Human-Centered Developments.”
The seminar will focus on the opportunities and challenges offered by the digital transformation of healthcare which was accelerated in the COVID-19 Pandemia. In this framework rehabilitation and social robotics can play a fundamental role as enabling technologies for providing innovative therapies and services to patients even at home or in remote environments.
[ UPenn ] Continue reading
Posted in Human Robots
#438012 Video Friday: These Robots Have Made 1 ...
Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your Automaton bloggers. We’ll also be posting a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months; here's what we have so far (send us your events!):
HRI 2021 – March 8-11, 2021 – [Online Conference]
RoboSoft 2021 – April 12-16, 2021 – [Online Conference]
Let us know if you have suggestions for next week, and enjoy today's videos.
We're proud to announce Starship Delivery Robots have now completed 1,000,000 autonomous deliveries around the world. We were unsure where the one millionth delivery was going to take place, as there are around 15-20 service areas open globally, all with robots doing deliveries every minute. In the end it took place at Bowling Green, Ohio, to a student called Annika Keeton who is a freshman studying pre-health Biology at BGSU. Annika is now part of Starship’s history!
[ Starship ]
I adore this little DIY walking robot- with modular feet and little dials to let you easily adjust the walking parameters, it's an affordable kit that's way more nuanced than most.
It's called Bakiwi, and it costs €95. A squee cover made from feathers or fur is an extra €17. Here's a more serious look at what it can do:
[ Bakiwi ]
Thanks Oswald!
Savva Morozov, an AeroAstro junior, works on autonomous navigation for the MIT mini cheetah robot and reflects on the value of a crowded Infinite Corridor.
[ MIT ]
The world's most advanced haptic feedback gloves just got a huge upgrade! HaptX Gloves DK2 achieves a level of realism that other haptic devices can't match. Whether you’re training your workforce, designing a new product, or controlling robots from a distance, HaptX Gloves make it feel real.
They're the only gloves with true-contact haptics, with patented technology that displace your skin the same way a real object would. With 133 points of tactile feedback per hand, for full palm and fingertip coverage. HaptX Gloves DK2 feature the industry's most powerful force feedback, ~2X the strength of other force feedback gloves. They're also the most accurate motion tracking gloves, with 30 tracked degrees of freedom, sub-millimeter precision, no perceivable latency, and no occlusion.
[ HaptX ]
Yardroid is an outdoor robot “guided by computer vision and artificial intelligence” that seems like it can do almost everything.
These are a lot of autonomous capabilities, but so far, we've only seen the video. So, best not to get too excited until we know more about how it works.
[ Yardroid ]
Thanks Dan!
Since as far as we know, Pepper can't spread COVID, it had a busy year.
I somehow missed seeing that chimpanzee magic show, but here it is:
[ Simon Pierro ] via [ SoftBank Robotics ]
In spite of the pandemic, Professor Hod Lipson’s Robotics Studio persevered and even thrived— learning to work on global teams, to develop protocols for sharing blueprints and code, and to test, evaluate, and refine their designs remotely. Equipped with a 3D printer and a kit of electronics prototyping equipment, our students engineered bipedal robots that were conceptualized, fabricated, programmed, and endlessly iterated around the globe in bedrooms, kitchens, backyards, and any other makeshift laboratory you can imagine.
[ Hod Lipson ]
Thanks Fan!
We all know how much quadrupeds love ice!
[ Ghost Robotics ]
We took the opportunity of the last storm to put the Warthog in the snow of Université Laval. Enjoy!
[ Norlab ]
They've got a long way to go, but autonomous indoor firefighting drones seem like a fantastic idea.
[ CTU ]
Individual manipulators are limited by their vertical total load capacity. This places a fundamental limit on the weight of loads that a single manipulator can move. Cooperative manipulation with two arms has the potential to increase the net weight capacity of the overall system. However, it is critical that proper load sharing takes place between the two arms. In this work, we outline a method that utilizes mechanical intelligence in the form of a whiffletree.
And your word of the day is whiffletree, which is “a mechanism to distribute force evenly through linkages.”
[ DART Lab ]
Thanks Raymond!
Some highlights of robotic projects at FZI in 2020, all using ROS.
[ FZI ]
Thanks Fan!
iRobot CEO Colin Angle threatens my job by sharing some cool robots.
[ iRobot ]
A fascinating new talk from Henry Evans on robotic caregivers.
[ HRL ]
The ANA Avatar XPRIZE semifinals selection submission for Team AVATRINA. The setting is a mock clinic, with the patient sitting on a wheelchair and nurse having completed an initial intake. Avatar enters the room controlled by operator (Doctor). A rolling tray table with medical supplies (stethoscope, pulse oximeter, digital thermometer, oxygen mask, oxygen tube) is by the patient’s side. Demonstrates head tracking, stereo vision, fine manipulation, bimanual manipulation, safe impedance control, and navigation.
[ Team AVATRINA ]
This five year old talk from Mikell Taylor, who wrote for us a while back and is now at Amazon Robotics, is entitled “Nobody Cares About Your Robot.” For better or worse, it really doesn't sound like it was written five years ago.
Robotics for the consumer market – Mikell Taylor from Scott Handsaker on Vimeo.
[ Mikell Taylor ]
Fall River Community Media presents this wonderful guy talking about his love of antique robot toys.
If you enjoy this kind of slow media, Fall River also has weekly Hot Dogs Cool Cats adoption profiles that are super relaxing to watch.
[ YouTube ] Continue reading
Posted in Human Robots