Wednesday, March 28, 2012

More Texas Robot Hacking: Dancing, Walking Robot From Freescale

Apparently, Texas has a lots of would-be robot hackers. Only a couple of days after researchers at UT Dallas showed off a robotic jellyfish, another local tech company revealed they have their own walking and dancing robot. Austin-based Freescale Semiconductor said this week that it has a kit which lets designers create a walking, dancing bipedal (two legged) robot. the firm said its Freescale Tower System mechatronics robot and board is aimed at teaching sensor programming, and allows users to create a robot which can walk, respond to touch, motion, and vibration, and react to other extrenal stimulus. The kit--which Freescale does not require you to be an engineer to use--allows people to learn programming skills, and even has been used by Boy Scouts for gaining a robotics merit badge. Freescale said its robot has been available since last year.