Willow Garage To Give Away 10 Open Source Robots 44
kkleiner writes "Open source robotics received a huge momentum boost last Friday. Willow Garage, one of the driving forces behind the Robot Operating System, announced that it would be giving away ten of its new and extraordinary PR2 Beta Robots. Willow Garage has an open call for proposals, so that any research group can apply to receive one of the PR2 Betas free of charge. Applicants will have to release their research with the PR2 freely and under standard open source agreements. In this way, Willow Garage is accelerating the field of robotics, not just by making their PR2 Betas available, but by encouraging the shared development of robots and advocating an open source approach."
Very nice. (Score:2, Interesting)
Duh (Score:2, Interesting)
Make it self-replicating. Program it to build and operate all of the machinery necessary to make it's component parts, and then to assemble itself.
Re:Two Pincers and no legs? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:remote controlled ... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Two Pincers and no legs? (Score:2, Interesting)
What's the point of using simulated robots in a simulated environment? What's the point of having thousands of DOF to "play with"? Currently, most robots are not application platforms but toys. This is one of the very few robots that can actually help in developing working, robust autonomous robotic applications, and they're giving it away for free. That's not to be knocked.
Commercial interests (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Commercial interests (Score:3, Interesting)
Automated mine clearance also comes to mind.
They are focusing on economically productive activities, not deadweight loss activities like the military, but mine clearance is more important to civilian populations than the the military, so it might count.