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News: This Jet-Powered, RC Dragon Can Fly Over 100mph—And It Actually Breathes Fire!

WonderHowTo has seen its fair share of dragon-related projects, from dragon wings, to dragon kites, to less-complicated origami dragons, but we've yet to see anything quite like this. Radio-control plane builder Richard Hamel built this incredible seven-foot-long, fire-breathing dragon using a JetCat P80 turbine and a 50,000 volt stun gun, with a 2.4-gigahertz touchscreen radio controller to fly it.

News: Autonomous, Solar-Powered Fijibot Only Lives to Survive Another Day

Aside from being completely adorable, Fijibot is a completely autonomous robot that automatically seeks out light sources to charge his solar-powered battery. He's built from a 1.5 liter Fiji water bottle, packed with an Arduino Uno, 6 volt solar panel, and an Arduino Proto Shield. His other parts are all off-the-shelf gear you could grab at RadioShack, while the wheels are from a discarded RC car. Fijibot isn't a particularly useful robot, but it's still fun to watch him navigate from light ...

News: DIY Video Chat Robot Lets You Be Two Places at Once

Want to keep an eye on your home while on vacation? Terrorize your family pet while at work? A homespun telepresence robot might be just the ticket! Luckily, thanks to shrinking hardware costs and the efforts of renowned hardware hacker Johnny Chung Lee, building a physical avatar has never been easier! Lee's robot has two important parts: an iRobot Create and a lightweight netbook running Skype. Notable extras include a wide-angle lens and a plastic stand to raise the computer to tabletop he...

Bubblebot: Build Your Own Gigantic Bubble Generator

Love bubbles but hate the toil and trouble of using your own lungs to blow them? Allow us to introduce Bubblebot, the latest Arduino-powered toy to attain celebrity status on Instructables. It's not an easy project by any means—even the Basilique du Sacré-Cœur has fewer steps. But come on, it's an automated giant bubble robot! It's worth it!

News: Carnivorous Furniture Eats Flies and Mice for Energy

PETA wouldn't consider James Auger and Jimmy Loizeau's ingenious flypaper clock very eco-friendly, but I might beg to differ. The clock doesn't require any electricity or batteries. Instead it captures flies and converts the bodies of the dead insects into energy. Eight dead flies makes for roughly twelve days of power. Not bad.

News: Arabian Camels Tortured By Remote Control Robot Jockeys

In the wealthy oil man's world of Arabian camel racing, the tradition of using child jockeys has been replaced with the use of small robo-jockeys in recent years. But after finally ridding the game of the mistreatment of children, the sport is now under scrutiny again. The Dubai police have discovered a new feature illegally added to the torturous, whip-endowed robots: hidden stun guns.

News: IBM's “Watson” Supercomputer Demolishes World's Top Jeopardy Players

A testament of man vs. machine will air on February 14th, 15th, and 16th when IBM's supercomputer "Watson" is pitted against the world's fiercest Jeopardy players, Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter, for a chance to win a cool $1 million. It took researchers four years to build Watson, a machine mastermind the size of ten refrigerators and equipped with complex algorithms capable of decoding the complexities of the human language (no small feat). Watch below as Watson kicks ass in a practice round ...

News: Polar Bears Play Bloody Game of Soccer With Snowball Spycam

Blizzard Cam, a 40 mph mobile spycam on skis, spies on a group of adorable polar bears (um, minus the blood stained faces) as they devour a pile of remains. Operated remotely, Snowball Cam is released from the Blizzard if scientists detect the bears may attack the device. The decoy can roll across most terrains (even up hill), and easily distracts the bears into a game of soccer. From a BBC TV program on polar bears.

Bacarobo 2010: Video Highlights from This Year's "Stupid Robot Cup"

Can a robot be dumber than a toaster? For the answer, look no further than Bacarobo—a yearly contest that showcases and celebrates and the world's dumbest, most adorable robots. Each year, ten robots vie for first prize. Each year, only one bot wins. Who took the title of Top Blockhead in this year's competition? That's something you'll want to see for yourself:

News: Is This All-Robot Band Better Than the Beatles?

Will the bot band be to 2017 what the boy band was to 1997? You be the judge! In the videos below, two such groups offer electro-mechanical renditions of the B-52s' "Rock Lobster" and Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody." Creator James Cochrane writes, "What do you get when you combine retro computer parts and an up and coming robot band? The Bit-52s! This idea has been simmering in my mind for the last couple of years and after many months of procrastinating it is finally complete. I was also motivat...

Some Dissembly Required: Researchers Teach Robot to Lie

Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology recently set about creating what might aptly be described as a baby Decepticon — a small, semi-autonomous robot vehicle that purposely engages in deceptive behavior to achieve its ends (in this case, winning a game of hide and seek). Worried? You needn't be! The project also seeks to examine "the ethical ramifications of creating robot's [sic] capable of deception." Phew!

News: Uncle Sam, the All-American Robot Snake

Don't be fooled by the fancy monocle: this servo-powered serpent is as American as Apple Computers. So American, in fact, that his creators at Carnegie Mellon decided to christen him Uncle Sam. Boasting more points of articulation than a GI Joe, Sam's hobbies include crawlin' in the dirt and climbin' trees.

News: The Future of Pancakes

Here's another latest in robotics: researchers at the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT) have developed a robot that flips pancakes. The most interesting aspect of the project is the use of kinesthetic teaching, in which the user "trains" the robot by example. The user grasps the robot's limb, and guides it through the motions the user would like it to adopt. This bot takes about 50 trials to get it, but in the end succeeds. Previously, I Want a Robo-Chef in My Kitchen.

News: Bicycle-Riding Robot Puts Pedals to the Metal

Robots have a long-standing obsession with tandem bikes. The first song ever sung by a computer? "Daisy Bell." If you don't recognize the title, you might nevertheless recognize the song's famous refrain: "But you'd look sweet/Upon the seat/Of a bicyle built for two." That was 1961. Fast forward nearly forty years and robots aren't merely singing about bicycles built for two, they're riding them. Take Joules, for example:

News: A Pet Butterfly That Lives Forever

Everybody loves butterflies. What's not to love? They're beautiful. But extremely fragile. Touch a wing, and the butterfly is immediately weakened, if not rendered completely flightless (BTW, if you happen upon this situation, we have just the HowTo for you).

News: Hello Emily. Goodbye Pamela Anderson.

There is little design artifice to this device. This EMILY (Emergency Integrated Lifesaving LanYard is a $3500 robot-lifeguard purchased for Malibu lifeguards. Remote-controlled and capable of 28 mph, product testing confirms that EMILY just might be smarter than David Hasselhoff and more buoyant than Pamela Anderson.

News: PAARRRTY! Robo-Drummers and Pole Dancing Stripper Bots

Artist Giles Walker's robot peep show/DJ installation piece gives us a little glimpse of what strip clubs could look like in the future (well, let's really hope not, guys). Walker also teams up with Frank Barnes and his robot drummers (second video in the gallery below, check it out - pretty sweet). Previously, Sexxxy Roxxy: World's First Sex Bot (NSFW).

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