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Watch out! You won’t escape a robot dog by climbing a ladder anymore!

Today, we’re taking a little break from humanoid robots because…

How much can you really write about them? There are thousands of other interesting robots in the world!

One of them is the ANYmal robot, which has crossed yet another barrier and can now climb ladders.

Even though our four-legged robotic friends have already proven they’re great for inspection roles, their potential was limited to flat surfaces or, at best, staircases.

By using special legs/grippers that help the robots grab onto ladder rungs, scientists from ETH Zurich and engineers from ANYbotics have taught the robots to climb ladders.

During tests, the robot achieved a 90% success rate on ladders angled between 70 and 90 degrees, and it did so 232 times faster than competing solutions (how did they even calculate that? ;))

What does this give us?

Ladders are very common in industrial settings, and there are often situations where you need to climb somewhere.

This ability significantly expands the functionality and working possibilities of such robots in factories.

Can you use a smartphone? Congratulations, you’re now a robot programmer.

In a world where we’re increasingly facing a shortage of specialists, solutions that lower the barrier to entry into technology are incredibly desirable.

One such solution, which significantly speeds up robot programming, is programming by mimicking the movements of our hand, like the system developed by Nordbo Robotics.

Anywhere a robot needs to follow a path and perform linear tasks, like:

→ sanding

→ deburring

→ grinding

→ painting

→ greasing

etc.

Besides speeding up the work, we also gain repeatability, something that, let’s be honest, we’ll never achieve with a human hand. People get tired, and no matter how skilled they are, after 8 hours with a paint gun, their hand will shake, which can directly affect the quality of the paint job.

With robots, you don’t have that problem!

At least, I haven’t heard of any robot complaining that its hand hurts yet!

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This robot might steal your girlfriend!

The guitar is a wonderful instrument.

You can play any kind of music on it; it turns an ordinary campfire gathering into an unforgettable memory, and it can also attract quite a bit of attention from the opposite sex…

But watch out for the robot created by Georgia Tech students, which can play any song on the guitar.

There’s still hope, though!

This robot doesn’t wear leather and doesn’t sing like Johnny Cash!

The Page from The Robotic Calendar

WABOT-2 – The Pianist Robot Virtuoso

Okay, so it was a bit far from reaching Elton John’s level…

But if you listen closely, it really had some skills ;)

WAseda roBOT is the result of a project by students from Waseda University.

They teamed up back in 1970 to create an anthropomorphic robot.

Even then, it was predicted that humanoid robots would soon play a crucial role in industry.

In total, two robots were created.

WABOT-1 and…

Yes, you guessed it ;)

WABOT-2.

WABOT-2’s task was to play the keyboard.

It was considered a robot requiring human-like intelligence and dexterity.

Moreover, it could:

→ converse with a person

→ read a standard musical score

→ accompany a person by playing music while listening to the person sing

WABOT-2 is recognized as a milestone in the invention of personal robots.

As always, I’m in awe of the inventors’ creativity and their pioneering work.

And you?

Do you enjoy diving into history and imagining how you would fit in those times?