magabot

Robots & Avatars

We had the opportunity to participate at the Robots & Avatars exhibition that took place in Kibla, a multidisciplinary center. It was almost a 24 hours trip, but we finally get there.

The Robots & Avatars exhibition is a great initiative create by the people at Body>Data>Space, they are very into robotics, human-machine-interaction, telepresence and virtual worlds, take a time to visit their website.

We took with us three magabots, one of them was running NAVI (a cool project that I will speak on a later post). The other two were running telepresence with Skype, plenty of people had the opportunity to remotely visit the exhibiton.

This kid was controlling Magabot with an Android phone running Skype.

The exhibition had great robotic installations, debates, workshops and even artistic performances, I will leave you with some photos, apologize not having pictures of every installation.

ROBOVOX was a SMS to VERY LOUD speech robot, by Martin Bricelj Baraga (SI)

The craziest Delta Robot ever, by Ruari Glynn (UK).

ZOE, roaming creatures, by Niki Passath (AT).

Blind Robot, this two arms where really alive, they touched your face very smoothly while simultaneously creating an abstract image and sound during the “recognition” process, by Louis Phillipe Demers / Processing Plant (CA/DE).

Funny little creatures created in a workshop for children, by Mia Lean Kronemann (DE).

Very inspiring debates around subjects like artificial intelligence, virtual worlds, intelligent robots, and human machine interaction, moderated by Ghislaine Boddington.

Visit to The Cultural Center of European Space Technologies, at Vitanje.

Riding with style!! :D

It was a great honor for us to participate in this great event, we came back to Portugal very inspired to create better and friendlier robots!!

A great thanks to everyone at Kibla and Body>Data>Space!!!

Another day at the office…

I know, I haven’t posted anything since… March!?

But these “no posting days” are ending I assure you!!!

Magabot is an open hardware and software robotics platform designed to stimulate creative minds.

Any robot with a computer is a very powerfull robot, and because all laptops have a camera, a screen, speakers, microphone, batteries and usb interfaces, your robotics experience will be empowered with Magabot.

This project is being developed in a partnership with IDMind, Artica and with the participation of Francisco Dias.

The Software:

Many applications are being developed right now, follow colors, wall follower, face detection, among many others.

We will provide interfaces for VisualStudio, .NET, c#, c++, openFrameWorks, Processing, Arduino, Flash, Unity3D, MAXMSP, PD and if you feel like you want to develop your own interface you will be welcome too, we give full credits on everything.

You will be able to download apps for the Magabot, to develop your own apps, and if you feel they deserve money, you will be able to sell them too.

The hardware:

The hardware is made with rigid PVC and a differential drive chassis with highly precise encoders on both motors at the commands of an Arduino and a customized shield. You’re completely invited to change and adapt it to your needs.

The basic setup integrates:
– PVC chassis with DC motors with encoders;
– Three Infrared-sensors on the bottom to detect stairs or lines;
– Two bumpers on the front to detect collisions;
– Three RGB leds if you are in the mood for some tuning;
– A battery sensor to know how if it is in the need for some juice;
– I2C bus on top to connect any I2C devices;
– A 7.2v battery and a charger.

Add-ons built at the moment:
– Pack of 5 Maxbotix sonar sensors with PVC supports to connect to the upper I2C BUS;
– Other add-ons are beeing developet at the moment.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

We lauched the magabot.cc site today, this website will be a repository for informatiom, source code, apps, hacks, support forum, and a place to buy Magabots.

Magabot is a protoproduct, we are commercializing our open source and open hardware best prototype at a low cost:

If you buy one you will automatically enter on our beta test program, we invite you to share your experiences and to post your results, we will also provide you with support for you to be able to use it, change it, and play with it.

The current price for the platform wthout the sonar kit is 250€ plus VAT.

The current price for the sonars kit is 100€ plus VAT.

If you need more information please contact us: info [at] magabot [dot] cc

Artica @ TEDxEdges

This TEDxEdges was a huge event, and Artica marked its presence on stage with the Einstein VideoPlayer adapted to play the videos between the talks, and with a video mapping system to display the data captured by biometric PLUX sensors.

There were 4 gloves on the room, and each person wearing a glove would be able to send its emotions to the assigned ‘TEDx’ letter.

I went to stage with André to briefly present Artica’s presence on the event, they mentioned the Farruscos playing sumo, the Magabot in telepresence mode being driven by Francisco Dias and finally what was behind the ‘TEDx’ letters.

In the foyer there were an arsenal of 5 Magabots all available to be remotelly controlled in Telepresence. This system is made with Skype and simple interface running on the robot side. So all you need is a Skype account and nothing more.

Gareth, Voodoobot, Birdmun and Ro-Bot-X from LetsMakeRobots were very present on the site, some of them even went outdoors and had a couple of adventures!! :)