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Online CRM Applications

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Online Foktai fun destination on internet

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List Of Supporters Of SOPA: H.R. 3261, the Stop Online Piracy Act

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Researchers develop cheap and easy to mass-produce "solar-paint"

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Just a Bearded Dragon Playing Ant Crusher (VIDEO)

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Consumer Electronics Association Black Friday Weekend Survey

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Tales from the Missionary Hut: The Wind Up

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Royal wedding and August riots top Facebook most-talked-about list

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A Vision Of Future "Cities" Built By Flying Robots

Video: Watch Flying Robots Build a 6-Meter Tower

POSTED BY: Erico Guizzo / Fri, December 02, 2011

This is the Flight Assembled Architecture, an installation that opened yesterday near Paris and is still going up as I write this. It's the result of a collaboration between ETH Zurich roboticist Raffaello D'Andrea and architects Fabio Gramazio and Matthias Kohler, also from ETH.

D'Andrea, an IEEE Fellow and IEEE Spectrum editorial board member, is known for his amazing robotic sculptures and flying robot stunts, and Gramazio and Kohler, who run their own design studio, are pioneers in bringing together robotics and architecture. But for an installation at the FRAC Centre, in Orléans, near Paris, they wanted to do something entirely new and bold.

How about using a fleet of quadcopters to build a 6 meter (20 feet) twisting tower out of 1500 foam bricks? Sure!

D'Andrea tells me they're using four flying robots at the same time. First, the robots grab foam bricks from a special brick dispenser on the ground. Next the quadcopters receive the exact coordinates of where the bricks should go based on a detailed digital blueprint of the tower. Then they fly off.

The robots fly autonomously, but they get help from the environment: The ceiling of the room where the assembly is taking place was equipped with a motion-capture system. A computer uses the vision data to keep track of the quadcopters and tell them where to go -- the same approach used at ETH's Flying Machine Arena. (More technical details here.)

When a robot's battery runs low, it automatically lands on a charger and a new quadrotor takes its place. The assembly is happening at a pace of 100 bricks per hour on average, D'Andrea says. Glue on the bottom of the bricks keeps them in place (the installation will become part of FRAC's permanent collection).

The foam tower is actually a 1:100 model of a "vertical village" conceived by Gramazio and Kohler. It would have a height of 600 meters and living space for 30,000 people, with each "brick" housing up to three floors of apartments as well as stores, cinemas, and gyms. A system of express and local elevators would allow efficient transportation, and traversing the entire building would take just 7 minutes. If you don't like the idea of having 29,999 other people living less than 7 minutes away, you may take some comfort in the fact that the village would be everything but densely packed: Looking out your window to the interior of the tower, the other side would be more than 300 meters away, and while shielding wind, the porous structure would allow for plenty of sunlight from all directions.

This week, after some test runs in Zurich, D'Andrea, Gramazio, and Kohler gathered their teams, packed their robots and bricks, and started the setup at the FRAC space. Last night, the museum opened its doors, and a crowd filled the room, letting off "lots of oohs and ahhs," reports Markus Waibel, a member of the D'Andrea team.

You have got to see this video and the associated pictures:

http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/diy/video-watch-flying-robots-build-a-6-meter-towerVideo: Watch Flying Robots Build a 6-Meter Tower POSTED BY: Erico Guizzo / Fri,... more

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US Army's hi-tech, two-year-old sandwich served fresh

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Watch: Siri Virtual Assistant Learns Steve Jobs is Dead (VIDEO)

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The Age of Transitions - [Full Documentary]

Uploaded by GoodFightUploads on Mar 29, 2011... more

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Astronauts' Dirty Laundry problem - solved

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Jet Man Yves Rossy Flies In Formation With Breitling Jets (VIDEO)

Daring Swiss pilot Yves Rossy flies his custom built jet suit alongside two Albatross... more

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Cell Phones Are Tracking Devices That Governments, Police, Big Corporations And Stalkers Can Use To Easily Track Your Movements

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World's smallest car unveiled. | I Didn't Know That!

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Abandoned: The Plight of American Family Farms

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Web security "Top" 25 passwords - "monkey" high on the list

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Scientists Invent Lightest Material on Earth

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STOP CENSORSHIP - Tell Congress Not To Censor The Internet (VIDEO)

Today, Congress holds hearings on the first American Internet censorship system. This... more

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