This company is an embedded systems research and development company and at CES 08 showcased some of it’s innovative and cool robotics. I was particularly impressed with “Flexo” as seen above, which has the abilitity to travel upright on 2 wheels, which showed some exemplary balance skills, and also recognising colours which it then follows like a little lost puppy. It was set up to recognise the colour red and therefore latched on to me quite quickly as I had made the mistake of wearing a red shirt! It was very friendly and didn’t want to leave my side (ahh, so cute) – it was only with the intervention of one of the stand’s staff armed with another red shirt to distract Flexo so he could tag someone else. His big brother, “Bender”, was also there, being a larger version with the ability to be controlled remotely.
Speaking of ‘remote control’, we were given an example of the ‘Brain’ which operates via brain wave activity! Just think what you want Brain to do, and he’ll do it. On a serious note, I think there could be some applications for this technology for those with severe mobitility problems.
There are some cool possibilities for the use of this technology – I think Bender would make an ideal bar service robot, but if you have any other ideas for their use, please let me know. The possibilities are endless.
For other concept ideas and prototype robots, check them out at OLogic.