Video Friday: These Robots Wish You Happy Holidays!

Your yearly selection of awesome holiday robot videos

3 min read

Erico Guizzo is IEEE Spectrum's Digital Innovation Director.

FZI happy holidays from robots
Image: FZI

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your Automaton bloggers. We’ll also be posting a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months; here's what we have so far (send us your events!):

Robotic Arena – January 25, 2020 – Wrocław, Poland
DARPA SubT Urban Circuit – February 18-27, 2020 – Olympia, Wash., USA
ICARSC 2020 – April 15-17, 2020 – Ponta Delgada, Azores

Let us know if you have suggestions for next week, and enjoy today’s videos.

Thank you to our readers and Happy Holidays from IEEE Spectrum’s robotics team!
—Erico, Evan, and Fan

Happy Holidays from FZI Living Lab!

This is what a robot holiday video should be. Amazing work from FZI!

[ FZI ]

Thanks Arne!

This is the robot I’m most excited about for 2020:

[ IIT ]

Happy Holidays from ETH Zurich’s Autonomous Systems Lab!

[ ASL ]

Digit v2 demonstrates autonomous pick and place with multiple boxes.

[ Agility Robotics ]

Happy Holidays from EPFL LMTS, whose soft robots we wrote about this week!

NOW SMACK THEM!

[ LMTS ]

Happy Holidays from ETH Zurich’s Robotic Systems Lab!

[ RSL ]

Happy Holidays from OTTO Motors!

OTTO Motors is based in Ontario, which, being in Canada, is basically the North Pole.

[ OTTO Motors ]

Happy Holidays from FANUC!

[ FANUC ]

Brain Corp makes the brains required to turn manual cleaning machines into autonomous robotic cleaning machines.

Braaains.

[ Brain Corp ]

Happy Holidays from RE2 Robotics!

[ RE2 ]

Happy Holidays from Denso Robotics!

[ Denso ]

Happy Holidays from Robodev!

That sandwich thing looks pretty good, but I'm not sold on the potato.

[ Robodev ]

Thanks Andreas!

Happy Holidays from Kawasaki Robotics!

[ Kawasaki ]

On Dec. 17, 2019, engineers took NASA’s next Mars rover for its first spin. The test took place in the Spacecraft Assembly Facility clean room at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. This was the first drive test for the new rover, which will move to Cape Canaveral, Florida, in the beginning of next year to prepare for its launch to Mars in the summer. Engineers are checking that all the systems are working together properly, the rover can operate under its own weight, and the rover can demonstrate many of its autonomous navigation functions. The launch window for Mars 2020 opens on July 17, 2020. The rover will land at Mars' Jezero Crater on Feb. 18, 2021.

[ JPL ]

Happy Holidays from Laval University’s Northern Robotics Laboratory!

[ Norlab ]

The Chaparral is a hybrid-electric vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) cargo aircraft being developed by the team at Elroy Air in San Francisco, CA. The system will carry 300lbs of cargo over a 300mi range. This video reveals a bit more about the system than we've shown in the past. Enjoy!

[ Elroy Air ]

FANUC's new CRX-10iA and CRX-10iA/L collaborative robots feature quick setup, easy programming and reliable performance.

[ FANUC ]

Omron’s ping pong robot is pretty good at the game, as long as you’re only pretty good at the game. If you’re much better than pretty good, it’s pretty bad.

[ Omron ]

The Voliro drone may not look like it’s doing anything all that difficult but wait until it flips 90 degrees and stands on its head!

[ Voliro ]

Based on a unique, patented technology, ROVéo can swiftly tackle rough terrain, as well as steps and stairs, by simply adapting to their shape. It is ideal to monitor security both outside AND inside big industrial sites.

[ Rovenso ]

A picture says more than a thousand words, a video more than a thousand pictures. For this reason, we have produced a series of short films that present the researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, their projects and goals. We want to give an insight into our institute, making the work done here understandable for everyone. We continue the series with a portrait of the "Dynamic Locomotion" Max Planck research group lead by Dr. Alexander Badri-Spröwitz.

[ Max Planck ]

Thanks Fan!

This is a 13-minute-long IREX demo of Kawasaki’s Kaleido humanoid.

[ Kawasaki ]

Learn how TRI is working to build an uncrashable car, use robotics to amplify people’s capabilities as they age and leverage artificial intelligence to enable discovery of new materials for batteries and fuel cells.

[ Girl Geek X ]

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