Remember, “Don’t be evil.”
Google Investing in Drone Autopilot Systems
Google’s venture capital arm announced yesterday that it is investing $10.7 million in a company that makes drone brains. The company, Airware, builds autopilots for unmanned aerial systems.
Because space and weight are at a premium on drones, especially small ones, Airware’s systems can get pretty tiny—one model weighs 32 grams, or about the same as a pocketful of coins.
Airware made news in January (under their previous name of Unmanned Innovations, Inc.) when a Kenyan wildlife conservation group purchased one of its drones to fly over a nature preserve and watch for poachers.
(via Google Bets $10.7 Million On Drone Intelligence | Popular Science)
Robotics researchers unveiled an electronic housefly on Thursday, one that can hover in air, flapping its wings to steer in a first demonstration of controlled artificial-insect flight.
WHAT WERE YOU THINKING, SCIENCE?
I spent about a month learning some electronics and the Arduino programming language. Arduinos are these little microcontrollers that look like a circuit board. They plug into a computer via usb, you can write code and download it onto one. Then power it with a battery and use it to control all sorts of electrical components.
I made a few little insect style robots, these are just 2 servos, a battery and an Arduino Nano. They can walk in a straight line and kind of turn, but in a completely terrifying way.
Cerberus Pup - little delta 3D Printer by Steve Graber
BionicOpter
Remote-controlled drone that flies and is in the form of a dragonfly - video embedded below:
With the BionicOpter, Festo has technically mastered the highly complex flight characteristics of the dragonfly. Just like its model in nature, this ultralight flying object can fly in all directions, hover in mid-air and glide without beating its wings.
NOW AND THEN BY DETROITURBEX
Detroiturbex (facebook) - Impressive series of photographs entitled “Now and Then”, in an abandoned school in the city of Detroit
