I missed the full segment of this story last weeks on “Discovery Channel’s @discovery.ca” program, but fortunately, the’ve put the segment online at their website. I seems that JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratories – NASA essentially) is working on a solar-powered, single-footed robot frog. This seems like a GREAT idea for extra-terrestrial planet-surface locomotion. Check out the videos and see for yourself. Additional information at Space.com Even more technical information is here and here, in these Adobe Acrobat files from one of the researchers, Paulo Fiorini. Here’s his homepage. And this is his dedicated Frogbot hompage – lots of interesting info!

Oh, and if you scroll to the bottom of the Discovery Channel / EXN page, you’ll find a nice video clip of our favorite Roboticist, Mark Tilden. They shot this a few years ago, and I’m glad to see they resurrected it to be on this page.

If you came to the BEAM/WCRG Millennium Games in Calgary last summer, you may have seen Jeff de Boer’s lecture on the aesthetic component of robotics. Jeff is a local Calgary artist (recently inducted to the Royal Canadian Order – a huge honor, considering his age), and was interviewed on CBC radio Monday with Shelaugh Rogers on the “This Morning” show.

Now, why would this specifically interest you, a BEAM roboticist? He mentions a project he’s going to be working on with Mark TildenÂ… This Windoze media “WMA” format plays on Windows MediaPlayer, and WINAmp players.

View our newest kit we have online, the Hex Pummer, a very amusing night display that is charged by the sun. When the lights go out, it triggers the high intensity LEDs to start flashing on and off. They start out very STRONG and then fade away until the next LED "PUMMS" on. These amusing kits will delight anyone who sees them, and they are simple enough for any beginner. If you are interested in a kit to start off your electronics hobby or are an old pro who would like to add a crowd pleaser to your collection; order the HexPummer today!

For A Limited Time! Order a prebuilt HexPummer for only $10 more! We have only a few sitting here so order them before they run out. It’ll make a great Stocking Stuffer!

More News! For those in Texas there is a new distributer in your area. Tanner Electronics is our newest Solarbotics retailer carrying kits. Visit the distributors page to find out more.

From a post we just received from Roberto Avil

Solarbotics is happy to introduce a new distributor in Toronto, Canada – Bug’n’Bots. Owner Steve Jones have been involved with BEAM for a while now, and is d

We’re still undergoing website bug-stomping. You may have noticed some changed news items and the like. One of the edits crashed the page, so we had to reload an older backup.

The SCPD photodiodes are now officially sold out! KaPUT! Gone! Until we can find a reasonably priced replacement, we won’t be restocking these items in the near future. If you want to hunt them down yourself, they’re a Seimens (now “Infineon”) BPW-43 Photodiode.

We are temperorarily out of the SC2433 solarcell until November 8th. We expected them earlier, but it takes a while for a boat to float all the way from Japan to out here near the Rocky Mountains!

Solarbotics also just recently had our own website security certificate installed. No more sharing our ISP’s – we now have a very secure interface page on our orderform. Not that the previous one wasn’t secure, but it was a bit confusing to be routed to “fp2.cadvision.com/skip” whenever a call was made to the secure orderform.

More teething problems! We’re very aware of the secure server “security warning” that pops up when you click on an items “Add to Cart” button. Be assured, we ARE the appropriate receivers of the information. The problem stems from the ISP serving our website (Cadvision) having a secure server that doesn’t correctly parse the names of their hosted sites (like us!). So when you see the error “Name does not match the Certificate” (being fp2.cadvision.com), it is in fact still getting SECURELY to Solarbotics.com. We’re working on the problem, but be assured, your information is still safe in transmission to us.

Another bug is in the form of the multipliers used when you order multiple items, I.e.: Solarcells. Sometimes you may get a strange number on your cart check-out form. Be assured, we are going through each order carefully to make sure you are not being overcharged. This bug is a priority to kill!

Sorry about the minor problems – we’re putting on our bug-stomping boots and working on it!

Still slogging through the backlog of “things to add to the website”. One of them is the ScoutWalker/SunSeeker interface instructions, in PDF format (as per usual). So if you want to see exactly how we get the head “talking” to the body, and what the exact circuitry is, come take a look!

We also are going to take all the little “pats on our back” and update our customer comments file. If you want to hear somebody else’s opinion of our products, take a look.