DesignRJC

I was fortunate to get an inside look at the annual ICRA event, known as the International Conference on Robotics and Automation.  It is a gathering of about 1200 engineers, about 98% male is the demographic, who spend an entire week listening in on intense workshops based on published essays, a couple nice lunches and dinners combined with a student party and a gravel pit where you have robots perform on the terrain.  I was a bit let down because the robots at the conference were more about education or the Mar’s rover type of robotic vehicle.  I was hoping for more artificial intelligence robots like the Honda Asimo of sorts.  

Nonetheless, there was a couple cool things that I did see.  Such as the supposed robot from the YouTube hit, KeepOn.

The highlight would be this robot that look like it was straight out of the Star Wars movie.

This robot is sitting on his chair, but when he gets up; he is able to boogie down pretty damn well!

Of course, he is also able to play Pong against you.  Now that is pretty bad ass, except, Pong is a simple game.  I told the engineer that I would be much more impressed if they could set him up to play Street Fighter 2.  

Other then that, the event was pretty boring as most of the topics is well beyond my knowledge and the fact that there was about 2% females, there was absolutely no eye candy.  Next year they’ll be in Tokyo, good luck!