Hello everyone. Just a quick update with what is going on with ausrobotics this week and next.

What is going on?

First off, I know the new site is confusing some of you. This seems to be mostly because of the limited functionality available in the current forum and possibly due to the layout of the site.

The main reason I chose WP-Forum as the forum for AR was its seamless integration with the rest of the site. I didn’t want people to have to log-in twice to access the forum and then their development blogs, plus its a bit of a pain to admin two entirely separate systems. Even so, I am not completely happy with it. It keeps throwing up DB errors when I turn on certain features so I have had to disable them (you know, the useful ones like Last Posted Topics etc.).

I am thinking that migrating (again - argh) to PHPBB3 might be a winner. It’s a well known forum and those who love forums will feel right at home. The only issue is that I need a robust way of keeping the two databases in sync. I’m looking around for a solution as we speak and will keep you posted. Till then please keep posting!

Any Sydney-side roboteers out there?

Also, Higgsman is looking for fellow robot builders in Sydney if anyone wants to contact him. His MSN details are in this post.

Oh yeah, and robot legs…

Honda have used some of the technology from Asimo to develop a pair of extremely uncomfortable looking exoskeletal assistance legs. For some reason I don’t like the groin grabbing aspect of them although it *would* be great to have an instant chair wherever you went…

[via Artificial Intelligence and Robotics]