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otherlab

Desktop Othermill carves out circuit boards, jewelry

What if you could easily add custom-designed circuits to DIY projects like 3D-printed stuff? Here's a small mill that can churn them out with precision and power.

Othermill is a Kickstarter project that has quickly exceeded its fundraising goal. It's designed to be a portable, desktop three-axis mill that can produce printed circuit boards, jewelry, molds, and other objects.

Conceived by the wizards at San Francisco-based R&D shop Otherfab/Otherlab, known for its crazy inflatable robots, Othermill works with CAD software to cut material in three dimensions. Unlike 3D printing, it cuts material away instead of adding it. … Read more

Are inflatable robots more than just hot air?

The one good thing about inflatable robots is that all you need to disable them is a sharp object. Just remember that if they try to enslave us.

This is Ant-Roach, a pneumatic robot that weighs about 70 pounds and can carry loads that are much heavier. It was designed by San Francisco-based Otherlab "to demonstrate the carrying capacity and high strength-to-weight ratios possible with inflatable structures."

In several videos, Ant-Roach is seen carrying kids on its back while it moves its six legs back and forth in a very slow walk. Watch it stumbling around in the sped-up videos here.

The beast has textile actuators that contract when inflated with compressed air. A microcontroller runs the muscle network, and is controlled wirelessly via laptop. … Read more