Erin Rapacki talks about how the FIRST robotics competition was a natural and inspiring way into robotics and onward into her career in robotics. Host: Per Sjöborg, Robots in Depth #12 supported by http://www.aptomica.com.
Erin talks to Per about her work in marketing for several startups. They discuss selling points, including examples from different industries, and marketing for launching a robotics product. Erin also shares her insights on telepresence robots from working with Beam and her game plan for starting a new company based on robotics technology.
In this interview, we get Erin’s perspective on IOT and robotics being the next wave of startups and that venture capital is adapting to the difference between web and app investments on one hand and hardware and IOT/robotics on the other.
Erin thinks that robotics will be introduced in specific verticals and that the service industry will be early adopters. We also find out about how the robot loving customer is her biggest problem!
Dan Kara talks about how a trip to Japan made him start Robotics Trends & RoboBusiness. He also shares his views on what is going on in robotics. Host: Per Sjöborg, Robots in Depth #11 supported by http://www.aptomica.com.
Like many others, Dan found robotics early in science fiction. When he was looking for a new challenge, having left the IT industry, a trip to Robodex in Japan inspired him to start Robotics Trends & RoboBusiness.
We hear how the focus has shifted from military applications in the early 2000s to more and more consumer focused progress.
Agility in production is also discussed as consumer demand pushes manufacturers to refocus from large scale production of similar items to more customer focused production.
Daniel Lofaro talks about how he works very hard to make things easier and how co-robotics, where humans and robots collaborate is the way forward. Bringing cost down cost and better AI is critical for this. Host: Per Sjöborg, Robots in Depth #10 supported by http://www.aptomica.com.
Daniel is Assistant Professor at George Mason University specialising in humanoid robots.
He talks about how robotics needs a “killer app”, something that makes it compelling enough for the customer to take the step of welcoming a robot into the business or home.
Daniel also discusses creating an ecosystem of robots and apps, and how competitions can help do this.
Craig Schlenoff talks about ontologies and the significance of formalized knowledge for agile robotics systems that can quickly and even automatically adapt to new scenarios. Host: Per Sjöborg, Robots in Depth #9 supported by http://www.aptomica.com.
To make robotics systems more agile and easily adaptable to new tasks is very important for robotics to expand beyond large manufacturing settings. Small organizations using robots have new and different needs. They need the robots they use to more easily adapt to their quickly changing needs. Good ontologies and formalized knowledge makes this possible. It might even make it possible to automate the automation.
Ian Bernstein, is the founder of several robotics companies including Sphero. Hi shares his experience from completing 5 successful rounds of financing, raising 17 million dollars in the 5th one. Host: Per Sjöborg, Robots in Depth #8 supported by http://www.aptomica.com.
He also talks about building a world-wide distribution network and the complexity of combining software and hardware development. We then discuss what is happening in robotics and where future successes may come from, including the importance of Kickstarter and Indiegogo. If you view this episode, you will also learn which day of the week people don’t play with their Sphero :-).
Mel Torrie, is the founder and CEO of ASI, Autonomous Solutions Inc. He talks about how ASI develops a diversified portfolio of vehicle automation systems across multiple industries. Host: Per Sjöborg, Robots in Depth #7 supported by http://www.Aptomica.com
ASI often collaborates with OEM’s, leveraging already existing vehicles and adding their automation expertise. Mel also talks about his goal of growing a great company for the long haul and shares how they survived the 2008 crisis.
View the interview to find out how the Google self-driving car has helped ASI gain traction!
Andra Keay from Silicon Valley Robotics talks about opportunities and challenges for startups in robotics, and what is going on in the robotics community.
In episode 6 of Robots in Depth, Andra Keay talks to our host Per Sjöborg about how her organization Silicon Valley Robotics was formed and what they do. One example of networking events they organize is the annual Robot Block Party.
Andra also shares her views on the areas of robotics where we will see significant developments in the near future. Further, Andra and Per discuss how developments in for example agricultural robotics can feed improvements in other industries, including home robots.
Andra Keay is director at Silicon Valley Robotics and founder of Robot Launchpad.
Michael Rubenstein describes how he has taken his robotics research from theory into practice by building cheap and small robots, 1024 of them to be exact.
Michael first talks to our host Per Sjöborg about his PhD research in algorithms for modular self-reconfigurable robots, at the University of Southern California for Dr. Wei-Min Shen.
He then shares his work on the Kilobot project and some of the challenges involved with building 1024 robots and how you can learn different things from actually building the robots than from a simulation. This project helped him fine-tune the algorithms from his earlier research.
By working on Kilobot, Michael also learned how to make cheap robots, which fits the educational market well. He talks about this and the robots he has created that can be programmed by school children at robotics summer camps.
The Kilobot work was done in the Self-Organizing Systems Research Group at Harvard University. Michael is now faculty at Northwestern University
Valery Komissarova, Business Development Director at Grishin Robotics, talking about working at an investment company focused on consumer robotics.
In episode 4 of Robots in Depth, Valery describes why the timing for starting Grishin Robotics was just right and shares some of the initial feedback from different parts of the robotics community. She also talks about differences between the companies that get funded and the ones that don’t, what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur in robotics and the areas within consumer robotics where we are likely to see strong development in the next few years.
Tully Foote from the Open Source Robotics Foundation explains the benefits of open source in robotics and how ROS came to be an open standard.
In episode 3 of Robots in Depth Per Sjöborg interviews Tully Foote from the Open Source Robotics Foundation.
Tully explains the benefits of open source and how it helps make research and development more efficient. Both researchers and start-ups can focus on their added part, rather than starting from scratch. This is an advantage for the whole robotics community, enabling it to move forward much faster.
Tully also describes how developers can contribute directly to further developing the ROS standard, for the benefit of the robotics community.
Tully Foote is ROS Platform Manager at the Open Source Robotics Foundation.
