It's important to keep your guests properly hydrated at a party, but it's hard to not feel awfully demeaned while wandering around with a cocktail tray. Since hiring servants is
so passe, the solution is Table Robot from Laskmi-Do Corp, a two-wheeled, self-balancing bot that features a particularly unsteady looking design. It's tall and slender, balancing a tabletop on two scrawny little wheels, a feat it showed off at last week's FOOMA Japan, Tokyo's biggest gathering for foodies and related geeks. The natural comparison is to a
Segway, but this is a full-fledged robot, capable of cruising around under remote control and, soon, following you around by voice, meaning a fresh and precisely balanced mohito may soon be just a word away. Click on through for the video.
[Via
DigInfo]
posted Jun 16th 2009 8:49AM
That's pretty cool. Robots make my day. :P
I got to move to japan.
I'd rather have R2-D2 serving drinks (a la the scene on Jabba's barge).
They need to make one with arms to make the drinks.
lol I want to see how it fares against a drop kick >-]
You're a feisty little one, but you'll soon learn some respect.
I have need for you on the master's sail barge, and I think you'll fill in nicely...
+ 10 for Star Wars quote
enlighten me if im wrong but if the thing completely stopped wouldn't it just fall over?
As if humans have never fallen over.
That'd be my guess to! Maybe its got a kick stand!
Control theory allows a negative feedback system to keep the robot upright. It's the same concept as the inverted pendulum system.
Essentially, it never stops moving as it is always making tiny corrections to maintain a vertical upright situation. If you turned it off, that's when you'd requre a kickstand :P
Like balancing a broomstick on your outstretched palm, except sensors and minuscule corrections allow it to suck at this task less than humans do.
Japan must be near a wormhole that's connected to a hundred years in the future. Every so often someone from the future throws something totally cool but useless in the wormhole and the Japanese figure out how to mass produce it.
Hahaha... so true.
It's like the Japanese tech industry has unbelievable technological ability, but no idea what to do with it.
"Ummm, let's make a stool that has only TWO legs... and is a ROBOT! But let's make it ugly and utterly pointless, too!!!"
-or-
"Let's make a camera that rolls around on the ground and takes pictures/video FOR NO REASON WHATSOEVER!"
Mmm, for some reason I suddenly crave some tonkatsu and an orange soda!
congratulations, you have eyes and a monitor
why didn't they show the girl's face? =\
Awesome!
how cool this would be for a laptop,
amazing that it's able to stay upright given the size of it's parts.
That's what she said.
BOOM
YUMMY
I might be the only one thinking this, but wouldn't it be cooler if you have a homing device you keep in your pocket and it just follows you around automatically? Voice control is kinda weaksauce.
Agrees. or maybe a joystick haha. that would be cool too. I dont like voice command.
Imagine:
you: Stop. STOP. STOP!!!! the robot: sorry i dont understand. and then you get red sticky stuff on your nice white sofa :D
This lovely device, from the same country that gave us, the Evo and of course underwear from a vending machine....
It's apparent I am the only true Mojito loving reader. M-O-J-I-T-O.
I dont know, I like a moheato occasionally
A MOJITO is a lovely concoction of rum, lime, sugar, crushed mint, and ice! A moHito is nothing that I'm aware of . . .
Please get it right folks!
They could add 2 extra rotating wheels (the same kind as on a shopping cart) for stability so the thing wouldn't fall over when it ran out of batteries. Then they could also get rid of all the expensive balancing sensors.
But then it would just be a table with wheels, are you new to engadget? lol
That's kinda what I was thinking. "Unlike a robot with 3 or 4 wheels, a robot with 2 can make tight turns". Um, how about you put a third wheel on it and make all three fully rotatable. Then it could turn tightly, maintain balance while off (thereby conserving battery power when not moving). And also, like G said, ditch the ridiculously pricey balance sensors.
I guarantee a 3 wheel version of this would cost 1/2 or less than a self-balancing 2 wheel version.
With three wheels and no gyroscopes, you'd need a much wider base so it doesn't get knocked over. It wouldn't be able to maneouver as easily through a crowded room.
Actually, it's harder to knock over a two-wheeled self-balancer -- so long as they have enough traction and power, they can recover from being significantly tipped over -- but a three or four-wheeled non-balancing device, once the center of gravity is no longer over the wheelbase, over it goes.
But you all are missing one of the cooler features of a self-balancer. Not only does it balance itself -- it balances the drinks.
It always tries to keep itself upright -- and in doing so, it keeps the drink level. Even if the floor is uneven. Even as it starts and stops. You won't have the drink sliding around on the platform, nor will you have the drink sloshing over the edge of the glass. Because to stop, the robot will (HAS to) tip backwards just the right amount to counter the decceleration.
Of course, two wheels means you only get this benefit in the fore-and-aft direction. The solution is to get rid of one of the wheels, and use a ball. It's harder to drive a ball -- rollers are the usual solution. But you get to eliminate one entire wheel, and get great stability along both horizontal axis.
There are alternatives to the ball -- but most -- the mecanum wheel, for example -- require more than one to be effective
I would still rather have my drink set in front of me by a wicked hot female bartender or server.
Give it a few years, and you'll be able to have your drink set in front of you by a wicked hot female bartender/server robot. Unfortunately, you'll have a great deal of trouble making passes at it, since it will be ill-equipped for flirting. Hmm... boring!
2kg... Finally, a robot table that can hold my morning vodka.
remote control != robot
I want to see the sushi bot (also in the pic) grab a drink off the table bot! (Preferably without being programmed to do so)
Reminds me of this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOvoO6eQDms
This thing could still have four wheels...... The tray is enough of a footprint to allow another set of wheels. Unless this thing can account for a force pushing it back itd be useless in any place that also has humans cooking the food...... Or not behind a counter.....
That's the same thing I thought about. If this thing were in a crowd of people, it would be way too easy to get bumped hard and I can't see how it could overcome that on 2 wheels.
actually, compensating for getting knocked is rather easy with two wheels. in fact, you would not even need much special programming. it is in the nature of the balancing algorithm to compensate for tips one way or the other, whether they are big or small. a bigger knock just requires a bigger correction.
Someday in the near future robots will take place of waiter/esses.
Yay!
"I didn't spill my drink on you it was the robot table!" = barfight lawsuit.
"I think that robot is stalking me. "I know, there was one in the bathroom dispensing toilet paper too!" = hidden camera lawsuit.
Once you get past those , I'm sure the film industry can attach a camera to these things to get "all the angles" at once with little to no space taken up. maybe wrap it in green screen.
I can see these following around the elderly.
if that was to go skynet on me, wost it could to is break my toes.
=(
Sweet! Now if it can get my beer out of the fridge, I can finally get rid of my wife.
Cool, using an XBee RF module.
Who wants a robot delievering drinks? You can't play grab-ass with it.