Robotics Roundup: Jan 23, 2023

robotics-roundup


The Robotics Roundup is a weekly newspost going over some of the most exciting developments in robotics over the past week.

In today’s edition we have:

  1. How this Robot Climbs up Stairs
  2. Professor Makes it Easier for Humans to Teach Robots New Skills
  3. Alphabet Robotics Division Cuts Workers
  4. Sick Tricks and Tricky Grips
  5. Robot can disassemble and recycle 200 iPhones an hour

How this Robot Climbs up Stairs

YouTuber James Bruton has designed and built a custom home service robot capable of climbing thin household stairs. His video documents the design and construction of the robot’s novel segmented stair climbing system.


Professor Makes it Easier for Humans to Teach Robots New Skills

Asst. Prof. Reza Ahmadzadeh, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and Harvard University are working together to develop a system to allow humans to “Teach” robots how to perform actions by taking control of the robot and walking through the action. Hopefully, this will lower the barrier for robotic task programming, and also to simplify the process of working through unforeseen circumstances in learned tasks by allowing humans to take over.


Alphabet Robotics Division Cuts Workers

Another in a long series of layoffs in the tech sector, Google’s parent company Alphabet will be letting go of 20% of their staff. This layoff comes only weeks after Alphabet’s acquisition of the Open Source Robotics Corporation, and may signal a strategy change to focusing on the growth and development of OSRC’s robotics projects.


Sick Tricks and Tricky Grips

Boston Dynamics has released another demonstration video showcasing the lasted developments in Atlas’ control software. In this latest video, Atlas delivers a tool bag to a human construction worker and does a little showing off as well. The linked article and additional video goes into depth about the creation of this demonstration.


Robot can disassemble and recycle 200 iPhones an hour

Apple’s Daisy recycling robot is an excellent demonstration of what industrial robotics is capable of, performing rapid disassembly of 23 different iPhone models. Apple allowed a few select youtubers to see the robot, and share their experience.

1 Like