I’m telling you, there’s no end to the carnage… or virtual carnage… or inane thoughts I get when I see pretty lights shooting out of a robot. But that just goes to show how naivety will bleed us dry in a fit of flashy brilliance.

What is this I speak of? An experiment from Chris Rojas that fits a tiny Sumobot with an IR tracking systems for an interesting take on how we could interface with robots or our environment, or heck, with each other. Initiate fear recognition…

It’s a programming puzzle that brings together all kinds of open-source tech…

Chris Rojas (http://www.projectallusion.com/), has been working with Processing, Community Core Vision, and a modified Memo TUIO particle system to create an IR tracking user interface. This allows simple addition of IR leds to such things as a Sumo bot to interact with virtual environments. – techdesktidbits

wondering what it looks like? Take a gander and try not to get dizzy…

A Sumobot (example Sumo kit here) is a custom robot built to compete in Sumo Robot competitions or do your bidding as shown above. The is actually a cool experiment into using IR, projection and processing. If you keep an eye on what’s going on with processing, you can quickly imagine how this can transform into interacting within 3D environments, real or virtual. Sweet.

Tech Desk Tidbits via Make

Author

Josh is founder and editor at SolidSmack.com, founder at Aimsift Inc., and co-founder of EvD Media. He is involved in engineering, design, visualization, the technology making it happen, and the content developed around it. He is a SolidWorks Certified Professional and excels at falling awkwardly.