GBA Robotics

Nintendo-bot

More and more little computers come on the market in the guise of video games, address books, and video players. With each device comes people that take it upon themselves to push them to the limit of how then can be used. In many cases it takes a little hardware to make it all come together. This is one such case.
The Xport plugs into a Gameboy Advanced and gives you the following:

* Fully programmable FPGA with 50,000 or 150,000 logic gates
* 64 user-programmable I/O signals
* 4 Mbytes (32 Mbits) of flash memory
* 16 Mbytes of SDRAM (optional)
* Built-in high-speed communications and debug port
* Free FPGA synthesis software
* Several pre-tested logic configurations
* In system programmability
* Open source software
* Source level debugging
* Comprehensive software distribution
* eCos 2.0, RedBoot, and Insight included

Amazing no?

There is also an ebook (not going to be published in a dead tree sortof way due to the lawyers) that shows how you can program you GBA.
Time to trade in some old PS1 hardware and get a GBA!

Xport 2.0
Programming The Nintendo Game Boy Advance

cool, DIY, Nintendo, robotics

Robot Prototypes At Expo 05

expo

Loads of photos and video from the big robot demo at the 2005 Expo in Japan. The site is all in Japanese but don’t let that scare you, just click on the links and be amazed…
Walking robots, drum playing robots, robots that climb trees, robots that swim, robots that fly. Could this be the future? I hope so.

“Love terrestrial Hiroshi (Aichi international exposition)” on the 9th, displays the robot of 65 types “prototype robot spreading/displaying”

Love and earth Expo “Prototype robot exhibition” holding

Translated if you want to read the text. (Good chance that the links worn’t work.)

technology, robots, Japan,

Balancing Robots Made Easy

Bot Babe

I saw some video of this in action and it kicks but. Seeing the critter roam around in guard mode is pretty cool. I suppose you could add an image stabalized camera on it for sending video back to a central location. The top of the robot moves quite a bit (it uses its top mounted battery pack as a counter balance, like balancing a broom on your finger) so any video you watched would make you kind of sea sick.

BalBots.com – Balancing Robots Made Easy

robot, amtel, balanceproject, DIY

Asterisk the Disaster Rescue Robot

Asterisk

The robot, called Asterisk, is 52 centimeters long and has six limbs with four junctures each. It carries a video camera and can be operated by remote control through video images it sends through wireless local area networks. The researchers hope to use the robot in situations such as searching for survivors in large-scale disasters and checking the ceilings of tunnels.

6-limb disaster rescue robot
robots, Japan, rescue, wireless