Robotics is off to a good start this year. In January, there was CES, with lots of cool new robot products and demos, and we've also seen plenty of robot hacks using Microsoft's Kinect 3D sensor, which is creating quite a stir. But there was much more, of course, so it's time to review the most striking, stunning, and strange robot videos of January.
No. 10 This mind-bending action sequence from the Indian robot movie Enthiran is a must-watch. Insane, awesome, ridiculous? You be the judge.
No. 9 Students at the Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering near Boston, Mass., know how to build some cool stuff. Their latest creation is delicious.
No. 8DIY enthusiast Jose Julio's ArduSpider is an Arduino-based little critter capable of crawling, hopping, and scaring the bejesus out of the cat.
No. 7 Will the amazing, acrobatic quadrotors developed at University of Pennsylvania's GRASP Lab maybe build your next house?
No. 6 Watch IBM's HAL 9000 Watson, a Jeopardy-playing artificial intelligence system, destroying the human contestants in this practice match.
No. 5 Born at the University of Pennsylvania's Kod*lab, X-RHex is the latest member of the RHex family of robots. And like it siblings, it's one agile bot.
No. 4 Why use sensor suits or haptic devices when you have Microsoft's Kinect? Check out this body-motion-controlled humanoid from Japan.
No. 3 In what was my favorite CES demo, writer Evan Ackerman stepped into the Cyberdyne HAL robot suit -- and became Iron Man.
No. 2 Hit a robot with a hammer and it will likely shatter into pieces. Nein! This German super-tough robotic hand won't. Did anyone say Terminator?
No. 1Drones shooting fireworks at hydrogen balloons. Robot armageddon? Nope, just some Swedish RC hackers having fun in the woods.
Did we forget any? Let us know.
Erico Guizzo is the Director of Digital Innovation at IEEE Spectrum, and cofounder of the IEEE Robots Guide, an award-winning interactive site about robotics. He oversees the operation, integration, and new feature development for all digital properties and platforms, including the Spectrum website, newsletters, CMS, editorial workflow systems, and analytics and AI tools. An IEEE Member, he is an electrical engineer by training and has a master’s degree in science writing from MIT.
