BowlingBall

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  • BallP bowling ball 'bot puts your sense of balance to shame (video)

    by 
    Joseph L. Flatley
    Joseph L. Flatley
    04.30.2010

    We've seen robots play Soccer, Tennis, and Battle Ball, and now Dr. Masaaki Kumagai, director of Tohoku Gakuin University's Robot Development Engineering Laboratory, brings us BallP (or Ball Inverted Pendulum): a 20-inch, 16.5-pound robot that derives its name from the bowling ball that it balances on. Using three omni-directional wheels, the robot can stand still, move in any direction, and pivot along its vertical axis. A combination of motors, micro-step controllers, gyroscopes, and accelerometers allows the thing to carry equipment -- either on its own, or with the help of a human operator (sort of like a high-tech wheel barrow). If anything, it's a lot less intrusive than CMU's Ballbot -- our previous favorite robot butler (yes, in the end it all comes down to who can get us a cold one the fastest). Video after the break.

  • CTA's Bowling Ball for Wii comes with giant wrist strap, zero liability

    by 
    Tim Stevens
    Tim Stevens
    06.19.2009

    Riiflex Wiimote weights sure look life-threatening, but they're not nearly dangerous enough. To give your Wii Sports nights that little extra bit of risk and intrigue, what you need is a (nearly) full-sized bowling ball. Appearing on what is perhaps the least functional website ever, CTA Digital is showing off an "authentic" bowling accessory, splitting open like Pac-Man to gobble up a controller, then closing up again to form what should be the perfect weapon for knocking down both bedposts -- and giving anyone standing nearby a concussion. There's no mention of how much the thing weighs, but we do know that it has what looks to be an industrial-strength wrist strap on there, and that thoroughly broken website contains not one but two statements indicating the company will not be held liable for what you do with the thing. You know what that means: game on! [Via Switched]