Geekologie I Watch Stuff The Superficial

Man Hacks Together Kinect, Wii, Video Goggles, Treadmill And Little Robot To Virtually Groom Cat

January 4, 2012 / avatar, cats, cats love getting brushed just get in there and score some hairballs!, great now they're taking our petsmart jobs, kitty says get that robot away from me!, meow, not cool, scarring your pets, scary, telepresence, terrifying, the future is now, why'd you do that, wow, wtf did i just watch

virtual-cat-grooming.jpg

Because using your real-life hand is just far too simple and inexpensive, Taylor Veltrop managed to hack together an XBox Kinect, Wii, head-mounted video goggles, a little treadmill and a $16,000 robot to remotely groom a cat. Wow, the cat looks thrilled about it too.

In Veltrop's setup, the HMD provides him with the robot's viewpoint and also controls the Nao's head and neck--whichever way the operator turns his head, the robot moves in kind. Wiimotes are used to control each hand, while the rest of the robot's bodily movements are generated by cues picked up by the Kinect. So when Veltrop walks forward on a treadmill, the robot begins walking forward. If he turns sideways the robot rotates itself in place.

Cat grooming aside, the implications of this tele-presence avatar technology actually sound pretty promising. Namely in the realm of adult entertainment. That's right, folks -- virtual avatar sex. *puts on virtual reality goggles, slams peener in desk drawer* "...Why'd you do that?" I don't know but I'm regretting it.

Hit the jump for the robotic avatar tele-presence cat grooming or whatever the f*** it is in action.

Video: Groombot Brushes Cat, Ushering in a New Era of Remote Robo-Petting [popsci]

Thanks to Brian and Philip, who groom their cats the old fashioned way: watching them lick themselves. You gotta yell at them if they go for their b-hole though!

  •
    Crazy Fool Is "Friends" With A Pack Of Lions
    August 30, 2009
    This crazy damn fool, Kevin Richardson, runs a wildlife refuge in South Africa and has become a member of a pack of lions. It is probably the awesomest and stupidest thing I've ever seen (and I once saw a friend jump off the top of his parents' townhouse with a trashbag parach... / Continue →
  • Zombie Snakes: Rattlesnakes Can Still Bite And Kill Up To An Hour After Decapitation
    April 22, 2013
    Because Mother Nature is completely out of her f***ing mind, decapitated rattlesnakes can still strike and cripple/kill their enemies up to an hour after being decapitated. They can't fly though, so now would be a good time to start saving for that jetpack. Rattlesnake venom ... / Continue →
  • Nightmares: It's Raining Spiders In Brazil (Sort Of)
    February 11, 2013
    WARNING: SPIDER VIDEO. This is a video captured by 20-year-old web designer Erick Reis in Santo Antônio da Platina, Brazil of it RAINING SPIDERS. They're not actually falling from the sky though, they're just running around in their giant sheet webs hanging from the power lin... / Continue →
There are Comments
  • NoveltyFishHead

    Beta testing for future robotic avatars. :D

    Anyway, pretty awesome concept. Make it smaller and ya' can fight alien bugs in your friend because he ate a sammich at a gas station. (tee hee guess my ref)

  • JimmyThr

    what a shitty fps rate

  • This would be great for home / remote place security survelience.  Need a better robot that can really walk / do things.

  • lingying

     

    Good news:
    this website http://ym6.com/go ) we has been updated and
    add products and many things they abandoned their increases are welcome to
    visit our website. Accept credit card payments, free transport. You can try oh,
    will make you satisfied.
    Tshirt price is $12Jeans price is $34

                      http://ym6.com/go

    http://ym6.com/go                http://ym6.com/go

     

                      http://ym6.com/go

  • vhbsdfd

    Good news: this website (http://ym6.com/es ) we has been updated and add products and many things they
    abandoned their increases are welcome to visit our website. Accept cash or
    credit card payments, free transport. You can try oh, will make you satisfied.

    http://ym6.com/es

    http://ym6.com/es

    http://ym6.com/es 

  • Holy freakin' crap!  Who is this guy? Who does he work for? If he's "between jobs right now", dammit, I want him to work for me at my company!  There are SO many applications for this that it makes me dizzy. Two words: Virtual  X-men... for starters.

    http://www.shortwaveindustries...

    Shortwave Industries: All jokes aside, we freakin love this kind of stuff...

  • Saw this on HuffingtonPost yesterday. Is it just me, or is that video extremely disorienting to watch?

  • utera

    i think the kinnect is limited by its usb interface, so webcam video + the other sensors probably have a limited frame rate, and or he just didn't consider that bit a priority;)

  • and this is why we will never have teleportation devices or a cure for cancer- people are too busy working on unnecessary gadgets.

  • bo bob

    Unnecessary, maybe, but studies in the fields that aren't the most important at the time often open up new branches to study in. Take spaceships as an example. Necessary? No. Did it provide many useful technologies for us normal people down on Earth? Yes. Maybe we'll have a cure for cancer eventually, but that's more difficult than making ways to move a robot with your own body. And so is teleportation, which we won't be seeing for a long time.

  • "*puts on virtual reality goggles, slams peener in desk drawer*"   HAHA! You can't make me laugh that loud at work! I'll get caught!

  • well, i just wasted 4 minutes waiting for the robot to suddenly stab that cat and choke the lady

blog comments powered by Disqus