Robotic Toys are Fun!

An aardvark might make a great design to copy for a robot. Certain organic species and animals do indeed have many excellent traits that can be used in robotic design. It appears that evolution has served the animal kingdom very well.

You see the aardvark has some very unique features with really great gripping clawed feet. It has a strong tail to balance on, as well as a long snout able to get into tight places along with a super long tongue able to get into even tighter spots. You can see why such a robotic tool could assist mankind as a robotic design for search and rescue, sniffing out bombs, searching buildings or helping find survivors in an Earthquake.

The aardvark is a smart animal in the organic form, but with an artificial intelligent brain, strong power system and a robust set of sensors, well it might just be the perfect robotic tool for many applications.

Some may say; are you nuts? No actually this makes a lot more sense than the robotic dogs robotic engineers building or University Teams are now conceiving. Some say; but aardvarks are ugly? Well that is a matter of opinion, because they have excellent hearing, good eyes and so many great features to serve their niche it is almost hard to find a better animal for many human applications.

They are unfortunately not so easy to domesticate, to work with us as pets and trading them for food is silly as they are so well adapted finding and catching their food is simple for them. Therefore it makes sense to make robotic aardvarks to use as special tools in important applications. Consider this in 2006.

There is some speculation on some cool robot designs here of course based on natures designs. Aardvarks are an interesting choice for a robot design but not without some merrit. As robots in our future become reality we should be looking at these inovative designs and testing them. Although scientists are always working on some very interesting designs like most recently testing a snake like robot that can both go on land or water. I would say this design is most efficient and may preclude us from designing some of speculative designs out there now. Althought there will always be plenty of creativity in the robotic toy industry.

By: Juan P Mattenet

Robot Wars is an event where various robotic gladiators come head to head and duke it out using various destructive weapons. The winner of a Robot War is the owner of the robot left operational in a battle. Robot Wars first started as the brainchild of Marc Thorpe. The Robot Wars Show then grew on to become a television hit because of its ratings-drawing mix of action, chaos, destruction, future and reality. Many people are just plain fascinated with the concept of destruction.

The Robot Wars, are organized into various categories of mechanized warriors and it is often the case that the construction of a robot can support only one type of weapon. In fact, this makes a robot easier to control. Most of the winners of robot wars relied on the simplicity of their weapons and operation in order to achieve victory.

Here are the various types of competitors in robot wars:

1) Wedge flipper - Some robots are designed to merely flip their opponents. You can liken this type of robot war competitor to a judo player. This type of robot war competitor has the singular objective of getting close enough to an adversary and then flipping it continually on its back, damaging it in the process. This has the advantage of efficiency.

Another strategy used by this type of Robot Wars competitor is to flip an opponent in such a way that it is rendered useless. If a robot can't get up without human intervention, it is often eliminated from the robot wars.

Since the robot wars arena usually has a number of danger zones which can cause damage to robots, it is often the case that this type of robot focuses its strategy on flipping an opponent over these zones. One interesting fact is that this type of robot usually wins the most in robot wars. More on robotic toys and articles.

These are the days of remote-controlled-state-of-the-art toys. This case is especially true with toy robots. The Robosapien is a good example of how complex toy robots have become. The Robosapien can walk, talk, navigate obstacles and pick up objects all at the touch of a button or even by voice commands. It runs on batteries and has potential for a lot of fun. A long time ago, toy robots were made of tin. Complexity was way simpler but the fun factor is still the same. After all, a toy needs to provide you with hours of fun be it a tin toy or an electronic toy.

Tin toy robots were generally built with squarish parts. They normally come with a square tin head with some robotic feature or another. The robot bodies were also square or rectangular. I guess this is because mass producing square shaped tin parts were simpler and helped keep the cost down. As production methods improved, tin toy robots of various shapes and sizes started to hit the shelves. Rounded shapes started to become common and more complex functions for a tin toy became the norm.

The simplest tin toy robots were basically a tin cube with movable appendages bolted on. The attraction came from the painted features of the tin toy. Wound up springs and some simple gearing gave other
Manufacturers became more and more creative over time. As a result, more nifty features were added onto tin toy robots. There were robots that would walk after being wound up and then pause for a short while to emit sparks from their mouths. Some tin toy robots had multi-colored gears mounted on the front panel of their tin bodies that would rotate while the tin robot was in motion.

Tin toy robots could also take a fair amount of abuse. Rough play will result in scratches and dents but the tin bodies offer a decent enough protection for the tin robots to keep on functioning. Nowadays, tin toy robots are a collectors item and can fetch a good price on the tin toy collectors market.">

Fun and True Robotic Experience For Children Age 8-15 At Unique Technology Learning Center, Storming Robots, the Only Authorized LEGO MINDSTORMS Center in NJ

Storming Robots Robotics Learning Center is the first technology learning center in NJ has become an authorized LEGO MINDSTORMS Center since 2004. It offers robotics programs for children age 8 to 15. It provides hands-on LEGO robots workshops where children have fun time learning how to design and program robots. Its programs aim to inspire children's interests in robotics and science technologies by developing their intellect in fundamental engineering concepts, mathematics, strategic thinking, and problem solving. Branchburg, NJ (PRWEB) October 18, 2005 -- Storming Robots, the Only Authorized LEGO MINDSTORMS Center in NJ, offers fun-filled educational hands-on robotics programs for age 8 to 15. It provides engaging hands-on LEGO robots workshops where children have fun time learning how to design and program robots. Using Award winning LEGO MINDSTORMS Robotics Technology! This technology was developed by the LEGO Company and the MIT Media Lab, and was recognized as the stepping stone for children to the real world of robotics. With this easy-to-learn, but sophisticated system, children can create a wide variety of robots from simple automated vehicles with simple motion controls to more advanced robotic "arms" that use a variety of sensors, such as light, touch, rotation, and temperature sensors. All programming is written on a PC and "transferred" to the MINDSTORMS robot so children also get the extra benefit of acquiring or enhancing their computer skills. Have a fun time learning how to design and program robots! Though the idea of having a child programmed robots may sound intimidating, the LEGO MINDSTORMS System provides an easy and fun experience. Storming Robots' workshops offer a friendly teamwork-learning environment, and most children find it very intuitive within a short period of time. Adapt curriculum developed by renowned robotics institutions! Much of its curriculum was developed at institutions such as the Robotics Academy at Carnegie Mellon University and the Robotics Education Projects at NASA. Storming Robots further develops programs appropriate to age as low as 8. ... more robotic toys