Our Fascination With Mechanical Creations

An ancient Arabic machine  manuscript

An ancient Arabic machine manuscript

What’s so great about machines?

It’s easy to see how some of today’s mechanical marvels like NASA’s Mars Spirit Rover or The HRP-4C, created by The National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), inspire jaw-dropping wonder. Who made that? And how on earth does it do that? Are all natural questions that come to mind in the face of these modern works. However, there’s something about animated bits of wire and metal that have intrigued humans for centuries.
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Exploring the Red Planet

NASA’s Curiosity gets close to landing on Mars

It takes a while to get over 90 million km away from earth. Although NASA’s rover Curiosity hit the road for Mars at the end of November, 2011, the robot isn’t expected to land on the planet until August 6th of this year. In the past, rovers like this one had set out to look for evidence of water on Mars but this time Curiosity will be keeping a look out for any spots on the planet that may have been particularly hospitable for life. Curiosity is scheduled to be Continue reading

Dextre: The Robot Handyman

This bot is practicing its satellite-fixing skills in space
According to an article in CNET News, there are over 200 decommissioned satellites orbiting the planet. The majority of these expensive tools are eventually destined to become  orbiting piles of junk  if they break or simply run out fuel.
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¨One Small Step for a Robot and One Giant Leap for Robot-kind¨

NASA’s International Space Station welcomes its first non-human crew member

The humanoid robot R2, developed by NASA and General Motors, was launched as part of the STS-133 mission  on the Discovery shuttle on February 24, 20011.  Up until last week R2 was asleep, packed away in its box but now R2 is active and ready to be up and running. R2 even  has its own twitter account!
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