Spark Robotics

https://newatlas.com/nissan-self-driving-robot-soccer/54801/

Nissan shows off self-driving clout with a robot that draws up soccer pitches ​Nissan’s Propilot technology is at the heart of its self-driving efforts, but for its latest demo it is working on a much smaller scale. Over the weekend, the company unveiled a roving robot that uses the autonomous driving technology to draw up different soccer pitches to exact dimensions.

12 Year Old Girl Develops Pollution-Detecting Robot To Help Save the Ocean
A 12-year old girl from Massachusetts has developed a water-cleaning system that has attracted attention from major tech companies.

Anna Du from Andover loves the water and regularly goes to the Boston Harbor. It was there that inspiration struck.

"One day when I was at Boston Harbor, I noticed there was a lot of plastics on the sand, I tried picking some up, but there seemed to be so many more, and it just seemed impossible to clean it all up," she tells
While she is hardly the first person to be overwhelmed by trash in a public area like the Harbor, Du was able to take her concern and translate it into action. She built a robot with an infrared light that detects microplastics in the ocean.

Microplastics are an increasing problem not just in Boston, but around the globe. Defined as particles of plastic under five millimeters, or 0.196 inches, they've become commonplace. A study released in April showed that ice samples from the Arctic Ocean contained 12,000 microplastic particles per liter of sea ice, the highest measurement ever taken.

Those scientists used similar technique to Du's remotely operated vehicle (ROV). Infrared is the preferred tactic for detecting microplastics because, as Du explains in her video, the chemical bonds within plastics are good at absorbing infrared.

With her ROV, Du applied for and was accepted into 3M's Young Scientist Lab. There, she'll be mentored by scientists in ways to improve her ROV. Her next hope is to move on from ROVs to autonomous microplastic-detecting drones.

It's been a good year for pre-teens in science. In Tennessee, an 11-year old girl recently found a 475-million-year-old fossil. You've got a lot of catching up to do.

Ubtech Robotics’ Walker is the world’s first commercialized biped (walking on two legs) robot for the consumer market, offering a complete “home butler” service. The robot is designed to provide smart assistance and support across a wide range of people’s daily lives. Activated by voice or via a touch screen, it can perform a variety of functions for the home; including smart home control, video surveillance monitoring, security patrol monitoring, motion detection, instant alarm, video calls/conferencing, real time email integration, calendar/schedule management, playing music and videos and dancing. New functional arms and a variety of interactive control features are being developed.

Robomart is looking to make grocery shopping more convenient. This autonomous cart can be summoned via an app, so you can watch it roll up and access the refrigerated fruit and vegetables inside.

The robot is officially called the Bionic Flying Fox. It features a lightweight frame, a custom membrane for the wings, and uses machine learning to fly semi-autonomously. The robot relies on a system of gears and motors to provide the flying power and steering. The wings themselves are made of two airtight films and a knitted elastane fabric, which is stitched together at more than 40,000 points, making these wings both lightweight and durable.

It’s unlikely this particular robot will ever see any commercial applications, but it’s a nice demonstration of the state of robotics at the moment. With just a few simple materials it’s possible to build a complex flying machine that successfully mimics a style of flight that took animals millions of years to evolve.

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