Sun Bots

Border Protection officers and officials from the Consumer Product Safety Commission seized two containers full of FOX Sports Cleatus Robot action figures at a Seattle port in January. The Chinese-made toys, valued at almost $100K, were found to have unacceptable levels of lead in violation of the Federal Hazardous Substances Act.

Swisslog Healthcare announced they will be making available two new robots to hospitals, the SpeciMinder and RoboCourier. The robots are made for Swisslog by CCS Robotics and are based on the MobileRobots MT400 bases and Motivity autonomy technology. The Swisslog press release explains what the robots are for:

SpeciMinder is designed exclusively for INTRA-departmental materials transport. For example, a large one-floor laboratory or pharmacy in which several workers frequently move goods among multiple workstations is an ideal environment for SpeciMinder. RoboCourier will be available later this year and is designed for INTER-departmental materials transport. Like SpeciMinder, RoboCourier will be able to interface with doors, but it will have the added capability of interfacing...

Researchers from Argonne National Lab and elsewhere are finding ways to use the motion of swimming bacteria to move very tiny gears. The gear's shape directs a group of unsuspecting bacteria in such a way as to cause rotary motion. This motion can then be used to power tiny mechanical systems - possibly medical devices or maybe even tiny robots. Speed of the gears can be controlled by modulating the oxygen level within the suspension fluid - since bacteria love o2, feeding them more increases the speed while cutting off the supply stops motion.