GetRobo Blog English

Marriage of Robotics with Handicraft

 Engineer and electronics shop owner Osamu Iwasaki who's been building robots for some time is currently interested in using "soft material" for his machines. His newest work is the RoboKnit which is a collaboration with Hanakomet who did the knitting. 

 

 A little while ago, Iwasaki-san worked with textile artist Tomoco Mouri to make the Kinetic Quilt.  He used a Lilypad Arduino, one $12 servo motor and piano wire and it took him about an hour to build this.

 He is fascinated with what in Japan is now called "extreme handicraft" which seems to have a strong following of its own. You can see examples of this art form here and there's even a group called  O-DA-I Craft where someone comes up with a theme and people send in photos of their work according to that theme.

 So why combine handicraft with robotics?

 People's reactions to these kinds of robots is what motivates Iwasaki-san. The RoboKnit is "Cute!" and many children gathered around when he was filming the video at the park.  On the other hand, the general impression of the Kinetic Quilt was "Creepy~~." "If they were just made of motors and metal, people would've reacted differently. I'm curious to find out what kind of movements and structure make people react in certain ways," he says.

Interactive LED Display

 Not directly related to robots but thought this is really cool.

 An interactive full-color LED display made by nahitafu. LEDs are normally used to emit light but they can also become photo sensors because a weak electric current flows when they detect light. So he was able to control the colors of the LEDs depending on how much light they get. According to nahitafu, it's not difficult to do that with one LED, but it's not easy to make it work this nicely in arrays. Look at how it glows when he moves his fingers.

 

 His dream is to make large wall displays with this.

Archi/e Machina - A Robotic and Lifelike Structure

 Two researchers from Tokyo University have developed a robotic architectural structure that responds to surrounding sounds and movements. The Archi/e Machina is based on a tensegrity structure using 21 struts and 84 cables. Twelve of the cables are replaced with pneumatic artificial muscles.

 Below is a video of the lifelike structure developed by Ryuma Niiyama of the Intelligent Systems and Informatics Lab  and Yosuke Ushigome of the Hirose Tanikawa Lab. They exhibited the structure at Haneda Airport in Tokyo where people were able to interact with it.  

 It would be really cool to see a number of these structures interact with each other to create different shapes and perhaps in the future do something useful such as automatically provide shade for the public in the hottest times of the day or shelter when it starts to rain.  

 By the way, you may already be familiar with earlier works by Niiyama-san - who developed the artificial muscles for this project. His goal is to "develop robots that are dynamic and flexible like animals" and one such robot is Mowgli, the jumping robot. Just to refreshen your memory, here is a video of Mowgli.