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THE EVOLUTION OF DARWIN-OP FROM THREATENING TO CUTE

I stumbled over this photo and text on the ROBOTIS support site while looking for something interesting on DARWIN-OP:

robotisop2_1-1.jpg

ROBOTIS OP2 (formely known as “DARWIN 2” or DARWIN-OP2”) remains mostly unchanged with respect to ROBOTIS OP (formerly known as “DARwIn-OP”).Despite the change in name the robot may be colloquially still be called “Darwin.” The only major change comes from the upgrade in computing.

For those of you not familiar with with this exceptional robot, here is how he is described by our friends at WiKi, "DARWIN-OP which stands for Dynamic Anthropomorphic Robot with Intelligence–Open Platform is a miniature-humanoid robot platform with advanced computational power, sophisticated sensors, high payload capacity, and dynamic motion ability developed and manufactured by Korean robot manufacturer ROBOTIS in collaboration with Virginia Tech, Purdue University,and University of Pennsylvania."

DARWIN-OP along with NAO was one of the first small humanoid robots developed for scientific research and academic use. Both were developed and put into use in the first ten years of this century.

I am pleased to read that DARWIN-OP has evolved into a more attractive robot. Id often wonndered why such adarwinop.jpg capable robot wasn’t more popular and thought it might be because the original dusky Darwin-Op with his notched ears and glaring, white-rimmed eyes reminded me of the dreadful moth-creature in the movie Mothman Prophecies. An acquaintance called him a robotic Arnold Schwarzenegger; and it’s true that he does appear muscular (and uber masculine)when compared with other humanoid robots like NAO and PEPPER.

Many of the capabilities mentioned in the WiKi quotation above might apply to both DARWIN and his humanoid-robot cousin NAO; but perhaps Darwin-OP’s somewhat more utilitarian appearance was a result of his development in an academic rather than commercial environment. DARWIN-OP was principally designed for use in scientific research at the college level and above. At about the same price, NAO is no slouch in the scientific research department either; difference being NAO is also popular with children in elementary school. Maybe because he doesn’t frighten them? Good luck to Robotis-OP2: in the new bright face those crazy eyes don't frighten us anymore.

0 Comments
  • Dec 4, 2016 10:14:34 AM

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