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Disney Is Working On More Natural Moving Robots
Disney may not have much of a stake in robots at the industrial scale, but the company sure employs plenty of animatronics at its parks and films. So it only makes sense that it would want to build the most natural moving robots it can and encourage you to suspend your disbelief. Its research labs have developed a new method for controlling mechanical puppets, without the usual motors, pumps or valves. Instead the set up you see above (and in the video after the break) relies on pneumatic tubes and air pressure. As a puppeteer moves one arm, the other mimics it exactly, with no bounce back, stuttering and an…
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Disney Invents Robots That Swarm Into Colorful Animations
The images the pixels create now are low-fi,but there are experiments underway to enhance the resolution by including more LEDs in each robot. Walt Disney pioneered the art of animation and pushed the boundaries of robotics with his audio-animatronic presidents, but now the research lab that bears his name, along with ETH Zurich, have figured out a way to combine both art forms. Dubbed Pixelbots, Disney scientists have unleashed a swarm of teensy two-wheeled robots can traverse a surface and create dynamic animations in real time. Read Full Article