Robot

A man performing a skit with a two-story-tall robot in front of 8,000 fans at a "monster truck" show at the Baltimore Arena was killed Saturday night when a pyrotechnic device strapped to his chest exploded.Robert J. Murphy, 36, of Painesville, Ohio, was rushed to University of Maryland Medical Center, where he died on the operating table about 45 minutes after the 10 p.m. accident.Most of the crowd watching the show, which was nearly finished, was apparently unaware of the accident, said an event sponsor and a spokeswoman for the arena.

Robo Raven is making aviation history - again. The robotic bird's maiden flights in December were a first in the history of flying machines, but lasted only seconds inside the Reckord Armory at the University of Maryland, College Park. Now the mylar and carbon fiber contraption is back, soaring higher, longer and more accurately - the first machine ever built that flies on wings that can move independently of each other, as real birds' do. "Nobody has flown anything with independent wing control," before, said S.K. Gupta, a professor of mechanical engineering in the A. James Clark School of Engineering at College Park.

Baltimore's Afro-American newspaper has a rich photo archive - 1.5 million images dating from the Depression, World War II and the civil rights era up to today. But one of the nation's oldest African-American newspapers didn't have the hundreds of thousands of dollars needed to digitize its historic images for the Internet age. Now, thanks to a little robot built by a former Johns Hopkins student, the effort has gotten a lot cheaper. Using off-the-shelf electronics, Thomas Smith, a 2011 Hopkins graduate, built Gado, a swiveling, motorized arm with a nozzle that uses vacuum suction to "grab" photos and place them on a scanner.

One night in 1999, a rash of frightening sensations hit Paul Titus all at once. His left arm went numb. His left eye began twitching. He couldn't speak without slurring. Unaware what the symptoms meant, he was slow to call for help. When his ischemic stroke was finally over, he was paralyzed on his left side and for 14 years he needed a leg brace and cane just to stay upright. One morning last week, Titus smiled as he loped along on a treadmill in a makeshift gym. A high-tech, brace-like device wrapped his left ankle, monitoring his gait 200 times per second and supplying energy boosts as needed.

BOSTON -- Next thing you know they'll be making a Beanie Baby named Sojourner.I mean, the country has had a romance with space before, but this is the first time we've found a NASA space traveler quite so, well, adorable. Ever since the 2-foot-long, 1-foot-high, 23-pound robot rolled out of its air bags and onto the rusty Martian soil, it's become a national mascot.The scientists are so excited that one described himself as in ''hog heaven,'' though that may be an insult to the real thing.

The robot that helped police end a siege at a Linthicum motel Tuesday afternoon probably saved the life of the man who Anne Arundel County police believed had a bomb in his room.The suspect was huddled under a sink in the bathroom. C. Mark Van Baalen, the deputy state fire marshal who operated the robot, could see him -- courtesy of two video cameras attached to the robot and a 9-inch television screen in front of him."He reached up and grabbed something off the sink and then got back under the blankets," said Mr. Van Baalen, a balding, red-haired man of 35.When the suspect pointed the object toward the door, tactical police assumed the worst: that it was a gun. Had they stormed the room, they may have shot the suspect, Mr. Van Baalen said.

It looks like a giant metallic beetle or maybe Star Wars' R2D2 after a diet, but the $337 million space robot being built by Martin Marietta Corp. is expected to become America's first full-time construction worker in space.The 6-foot, one-legged, two-armed mechanical creature is being designed and built by engineers at Martin's Aerospace Division in Denver and is to be used in the construction of the Space Station Freedom sometime later this decade.One big advantage the robot will have over other space station construction workers or crew members is that it will have "eyes," or video cameras, on each of its wrists as well as at the top of its oblong body.

GREENBELT -- A spidery robot named Dante began inching its way down into an Antarctic volcano yesterday in a daring New Year's display of technology delayed earlier by cold weather and an unexpected eruption.But a computer glitch at the project's base camp brought Dante to a halt after the vehicle had traveled only about 21 feet. The setback dampened the initial excitement over the descent."Everybody watching it here is real excited," said Randee Exler, a spokeswoman at the Goddard Space Flight Center where scientists gathered to watch TV pictures transmitted by the robot.

A robot that enables people to take a load off their feet could benefit victims of hip fractures, spinal disorders or back injuries as they rediscover the art of walking.Although it is being used at 40 nursing homes, hospitals and rehabilitation hospitals in Japan, a model now in place at the Bennett Institute for Sports Medicine at Children's Hospital is the first to be tried in the United States.Research on 20 patients will soon be conducted by Johns Hopkins researchers working at a biomechanics laboratory at Bennett.

For the dangerous job of cleaning up the radioactive waste from the production of weapons, the nuclear industry has turned to T-REX, a robot being developed by Martin Marietta Corp. in Middle River.While T-REX (Teleoperated Robotic Excavator) may look a lot like the excavators used by highway construction contractors, any similarities end there.T-REX is strong enough to crush a bowling ball, Al Kamhi, Martin spokesman, said. But unlike its construction industry look-alike, "it has to have the delicate touch to pick up an egg without cracking the shell," he said.

At the recent Maryland state championship for the FTC class of FIRST Robotics, the Havre de Grace High School Spears and Gears team placed 14th among 32 teams entered in the competition held at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel. The small Havre de Grace robotics team, consisting of Allison Grabowski, team captain and lead engineer; Tucker Barnes, software programming; and Kenny Hallock, worked feverishly in weeks leading up to the Feb. 23 competition to complete and refine its Bot, according to team faculty advisor Craig Kostyshyn.

Havre de Grace High School was taken over by tiny robots Saturday, Feb. 9, as 13 teams from schools and scout troops around the region participated in a daylong Maryland FIRST Tech Challenge qualification tournament. Saturday's tournament, a qualifier for the state final later this month, was hosted by the Spears & Gears Team No. 4141 from Havre de Grace High. In all, more than 200 people attended the event, including approximately 130 team members and mentors, 45 volunteers who were mostly Havre de Grace High students and about 30 spectators, according to Shawna Ashman, one of the mentors for the host team which did not participate Saturday.

Elvis will not be leaving the building Saturday. Nor will any of the other contestants in Elvis' Birthday Fight Club, a combination battle-to-the-finish boxing grudge match and burlesque show where past champions have included a chicken and a vibrating robot. "We like to think of ourselves as either burlesque-plus or theater-minus," explains Elvis' Birthday Fight Club (we'll go by EBFC from here on) founder-promoter-participant Jared Davis, who is bringing his creation to Highlandtown's Creative Alliance at the Patterson for the second straight year.

Even as epidemiologists worry about a shrinking arsenal of antibiotics to fight potentially deadly drug-resistant bacteria, researchers at Johns Hopkins Hospital are betting on another weapon to prevent infections: robots. It sounds more futuristic than it looks: The hospital uses "robot" devices resembling portable air-conditioning units to saturate the air in sealed rooms with hydrogen peroxide, disinfecting all surfaces before converting the potent mist into water vapor. The technology has been used at the hospital more than 4,000 times over the past five years, with promising results.

When students in River Hill High School's Advanced Computer Science classes entered a worldwide high school robotics competition last year that involved programming International Space Station satellites, they figured their chances of winning were mathematically improbable. They were wrong. The River Hill students were part of an alliance - a team of three schools - that captured first place in the Zero Robotics High School Tournament, and now they're looking for a repeat performance.

The Eldersburg-based company, Partnership and Inspiration for Engineering Education and Entrepreneurship (or PIE-3) recently formed a partnership with South Carroll High School to help the school form a robotics team that will eventually complete in sanctioned robotics events. PIE-3 program coordinator Thomas Milnes, has already begun working to provide materials, and has met with school advisor Sean Lee. The firm is also helping provide funds for competition kits that the students will use to create robots.

BY DAY HE'S a mild-mannered dad who works as an engineer. But by night, Mount Airy resident Rob Everhart works tirelessly in his garage, creating one of the most menacing, dangerous creatures on two tank treads: Atomic Wedgie. The robotic gladiator begins its fifth season of competition this month on the cable TV show BattleBots, which is co-hosted by Carmen Electra on Comedy Central. The show pits robots against one another in battles to the death - or, rather, electronic failure. "It just kind of started as a lark as I was flipping channels one day and saw the show," said Everhart.

A high-tech robot developed by Martin Marietta Corp. i Baltimore for loading weapons and spying on the enemy on battlefields is getting a tryout in a non-military job: handling radioactive waste.A prototype of the Teleoperated Robotic Excavator -- T-Rex to friends -- will be tested at a federal nuclear laboratory. If it passes, the machine could be used to excavate and move barrels of nuclear waste buried at Idaho Falls, Idaho.Moreover, cousins of T-Rex could find themselves employed in a wide range of jobs handling hazardous material, says Charles Manor, spokesman for Martin Marietta.

Baltimore's Afro-American newspaper has a rich photo archive - 1.5 million images dating from the Depression, World War II and the civil rights era up to today. But one of the nation's oldest African-American newspapers didn't have the hundreds of thousands of dollars needed to digitize its historic images for the Internet age. Now, thanks to a little robot built by a former Johns Hopkins student, the effort has gotten a lot cheaper. Using off-the-shelf electronics, Thomas Smith, a 2011 Hopkins graduate, built Gado, a swiveling, motorized arm with a nozzle that uses vacuum suction to "grab" photos and place them on a scanner.

Each member of the Western High School Robotics team brings a range of individual strengths that help them compete, everything from a knack for maneuvering a remote control to extraordinary math and science skills. But, they say, they also have a competitive edge that's harder to match: girl power. It's what members on the all-girl team - called the "RoboDoves" after Western's mascot - say has helped them soar onto the national and international robotics scene, an intellectual sport that has traditionally been dominated by males and suburban school districts.