Daily Archives: May 3, 2022

Amazon Robotics robots, evolved from the acquisition of Kiva Systems, move shelving units at the companys robotics sortation center outside Pittsburgh. (GeekWire Photo / Todd Bishop)

PITTSBURGH There are no shortage of headlines about automation, artificial intelligence and robotics wiping out large swaths of employment, from truck drivers to painters to food service workers.

But opinions are mixed on the robotics revolution and its potential impact on society.

Globally, 48% of respondents to a Pew Research Center survey said automating jobs historically performed by humans is a good thing, while 42% said it was a bad thing. In the U.S., folks are not as upbeat about the promise of automation in the workplace 50% say its a bad thing, and 41% say its a good thing.

So what do the people building robots think? Well, of course, they dont believe they are contributing to the demise of society.

Instead, they see a harmonious relationship between humans and robots a new workplace in which happier employees focus on higher value tasks and let the robots do the dull, demeaning and dirty jobs. They also feel automation is the one tool that can help fix complex labor and supply chain issues.

Five leaders in the robotics field spoke on the topic Tuesday at the Cascadia Connect Robotics Automation and AI conference in Pittsburgh. The conference is organized by Seattle-based Cascadia Capital, which is underwriting GeekWiresindependent reporting on the topic.

Heres what the leaders had to say:

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The robots arent coming for your jobs at least according to these AI and robotics leaders - GeekWire

They came to talk about self-driving lawnmowers, virtual reality modules for job training and an AI tool that turns speech into simple cartoony images, alongside what they said werebetter ways for retail self-checkout, robotic sensing and disease detection.

Organized by Innovation Works and Carnegie Mellon University, the AI & Robotics Venture Fair, held at the Fairmont Pittsburgh on Monday, gave some of the regions emerging tech companies an opportunity to deliver an elevator pitch in front of investors. Each got five minutes and a chance to answer one question.

A majority of these companies are based in Pittsburgh, with many of them spun out of CMU or founded by CMU grads. With these startups at early or growth stage, Technical.ly asked as few of them why they remain in Pittsburgh and the factors that would encourage them to stay.

Joe Bartels founded sensor maker Phlux Technologies in 2020 after earning his doctorate from CMU.

Joe Bartels. (Photo by Nick Keppler)

Were here to stay, the CEO told Technical.ly. We love Pittsburgh. The company recently moved out of Alpha Gear, the shared working space in East Liberty, and leased its own office space. It is now hiring its core engineering team whichhas led Bartels to start to think that the robotics talent pool in Pittsburgh might not be large enough to accommodate its growing needs.

Theres definitely a great source of talent here, he said, and I think that just needs to accelerate more. Theres more and more robotics companies moving into town, and theyre all looking for the same talent. And so I think the talent pool needs to grow a little bit more

And other companies seem to stop coming, he said with a laugh.

Bartels also said Pittsburgh has an early-stage funding gap, something thats been noted by other local startup leaders. I think theres a lot of easy relatively easy money at the initial onset of starting a company. Then theres a lot of investors that want to invest in the next stage, where its your product and you have a lot of customers. But for the stage that Phlux is in now, where a company is looking to establish personnel, space, and reputation, funding can be scarce.

Based in the Alpha Gear space in East Liberty, Estat Actuation makes actuators, the device in a robotics system that causes it to operate. Cofounder and CEO Stuart Diller developed the technology while earning his doctorate at CMU. When he decided to launch the company, peers and mentors told him to leave Pittsburgh.

Stuart Diller. (Photo by Nick Kepper)

Multiple people said, You have to go to Silicon Valley if youre going to have robotics startup, he said. But with help from the robotics ecosystem, we were able to attract talent back from Silicon Valley to Pittsburgh.

Because the quality of life afforded by people who have ascended to the tech sector, and the citys lower cost of living, Pittsburgh is attractive, he said. Thats particularly true for potential recruits who lived in the city or attended CMU.

He added that it is important for city to maintain its robotics ecosystem of companies that could be partners, of traditional and nontraditional office spaces, of organizations like Innovation Works, and of manufacturing providers for specialty parts.

I expect us to maintain at least maintain a presence here for as long as we have the company, Diller said, and I would expect us to be headquartered here for a while. We dont have immediate plans to move.

Synaptic is a cybersecurity company specially designed for attacks on Linux components. CEO Anthony Gadient, who previously founded three other tech startups, founded Synaptic during the summer of 2020, the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Everybodys remote, he told Technical.ly. Its a completely virtual company. Employees live as far away as Atlanta and San Jose. When he decides to establish a physical office, Pittsburgh would be one of the top three choices. The others are Boston and San Jose.

Pittsburgh is a great location for talent because of the universities, Gadient said. That would be the primary reason to set up an office here, and it probably would be an engineering office. I could see doing that and then having a sales office in Boston and or San Jose.

Anthony Gadient presenting Synaptic Security. (Photo by Nick Keppler)

CEO Vivek Kulkarni left his job at a software company to start ARIN Technologies, which has patented technology for alerting and localization systems for automated machinery, in 2015. He is committed to staying in Pittsburgh for family reasons: My kids are in school, he said. Theyll kill me if we try to move out.

Kulkarni has recruited a mostly remote work force.

Weve been working remotely for a long time, even before the pandemic. For us working remote is almost second nature, he said, so we dont find it hard to work with somebody whos in India or anywhere in the US as long as we can speak in the same language.

As for what Pittsburgh needs, the founder mentioned investors who were willing to take a chance on a company without a Silicon Valley street address.

We could do with more investors, more money flowing into the region, Kulkarni said. We could do with more companies being willing to take chances on startups. Again, it comes from being a smaller city.

Vivek Kulkarni presents ARIN Technologies. (Photo by Nick Keppler)

Spun out of Carnegie Robotics about a year ago, Thoro develops mobile robotics systems designed for repetitive industrial tasks. Joe Hosteny, head of cloud and fleet systems, said the company plans to stay in Pittsburgh, but the city needs to grow its talent pool beyond the plentiful population with engineering backgrounds. Tech companies do need other skillsets, he noted.

I think on the business side, we just need more people whove been through large, successful startups and bring more that sort of the management experience, to the sales, marketing, all those types of things, Hosteny said.

Operating in Pittsburgh presents the kind of challenges you would expect with a smaller town, especially not a primary tech city, he said. Its smaller, and maybe access to capital is a little bit more difficult.

However, Hosteny has been working with Pittsburgh startups since 2000 and the issues of talent and funding have improved considerably: The trajectory is correct. Its just you need to continue them on that trajectory.

Joe Hosteny presents Thoro.ai. (Photo by Nick Keppler)

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What 5 robotics founders say they need to thrive in Pittsburgh - Technical.ly

VISALIA, Calif. Initiating their partnership at the beginning of 2021, Bloomfield Robotics and the leading grower, marketer and distributor of fresh produce commenced trials of the tech in its California grape vineyards which revealed quick success. Just one year later, Oppy BB #:116424 is investing in its first-ever technology venture.

Bloomfield Robotics proprietary FLASH camera is attached to a moving vehicle, such as an ATV or tractor, and as it moves through the orchard, takes pixel-by-pixel data.

That data is then processed through its deep learning AI to forecast and manage yield down to the cluster level, detecting and measuring morphologic and phenotypic information to inform decisions and enhance the performance and health of every plant.

Currently underway in their second season and working towards commercialization, the duo are looking toward their next move as strategic partners.

Grapes are just the beginning, said Garland Perkins, who leads innovative efforts at Oppy as senior manager of innovation and sustainability. Were confident that well roll this tech out into other categories in the near future and with Oppys diverse portfolio, we have a wide array of applications to trial.

While its forecasting capabilities provide significantly more data than in-field scouting, according to Perkins, the AI also helps strategically guide the growers commercial crop decisions with precise accuracy.

Were honored and excited to be working so closely with Oppy in an effort to further digitalize their crops, said Mark DeSantis, CEO of Bloomfield Robotics. Our team looks forward to supporting Oppy, a company that has grown and delivered fruits and vegetables from around the world for nearly 165 years.

Oppy is a proud supporter of Bloomfield Robotics. This valuable and strategic investment in our supply chain underlines our dedication to this technology, concluded Perkins.

About OppyGrowing, marketing and distributing fresh produce from around the globe for more than 160 years, Vancouver, BC-based Oppy discovers and delivers the best of the worlds harvest. With over 50 million boxes of fresh fruits and vegetables grown on every continent moving through its supply chain annually, Oppy offers popular favorites from avocados and berries to apples and oranges year-round, alongside innovative seasonal specialties. Over the years, Oppy has introduced North Americans to a number of items across its diverse produce range, including Granny Smith, JAZZ and Envy apples, as well as green and gold kiwifruit. Go to http://www.oppy.com to learn more.

About Bloomfield RoboticsBloomfield provides an easy-to-use, cost effective way to assess the health and performance of specialty crops, one plant at a time, with deep learning and imaging to customers across three continents. Go to http://www.bloomfield.ai to learn more.

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Oppy makes first-ever tech investment in robotics Produce Blue Book - Produce Blue Book

Owensboro Innovation Academys Robotics team received $2,000 from Southern Star Central Gas Pipeline to help support the team as they head to the national competition in Texas this week.

Team Captains Michael Gray and Luke Austin said that the money will help the team fund more opportunities for the engineering programs and give them the ability to host more tournaments this upcoming season.

It also means we get to buy certain new sensors, all that type jazz for engineering. It means that we are able to work on more projects have more metal for pinball machines that we have, Gray said.

The amount came as a surprise to the team, as they didnt know that they were receiving anything.

Competition season for the team is packed with numerous meets, as they compete nearly every other week.

This season marks the third time the team has qualified for nationals but is just the first time they are able to compete in person.

Its not just a national competition; it is global. This year I think theres a little bit of division on that, but we may be playing with people from Canada, from the places in South America, Gray said. Theres a lot of different opportunities to meet people.

Shawn Patterson, Executive Vice President/COO of Southern Star, said the donation for the robotics team also marks their commitment to supporting youth and STEM programs around Owensboro.

Weve been able to partner with OIA for 4 years now and hopefully helped the team that qualified for nationals to travel down to nationals and bring home another trophy, Patterson said.

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OIA Robotics team receives $2k from Southern Star, going to nationals 3rd straight year - The Owensboro Times

In today's show, Kate chats with Bill Studebaker, president and chief investment officer at ROBO Global ETFs, an index, advisory, and research company focused on fast-growing industries including robotics, artificial intelligence, and healthcare technology.In this interview, Kate and Bill discuss:What is causing robotics and A/I to decline at a faster rate than the broader market?How have current events put tech companies in the eye of the storm?How Bills robo index trades on earnings and is designed that way to weather an economic storm.Why companies in the automation field may bounce back due to large order backlogs? Does this mean certain stocks are mispriced right now?What industries will benefit from increased automation?How did various developments surrounding Covid give a boost to logistics and supply chain automation?Will consumers drive the next round of demand in the supply-chain automation industry?How is health care being transformed by surgical robotics providers?What company in Bills portfolio enables Amazon to track and manage an ever-growing stream of orders?What other company is a leader in the growing area of warehouse management solutions?What does Bill expect to see with earnings among companies in the robo index this year?How should retail investors approach the robotics and automation industry without getting caught up in hype?Stocks mentioned in this interview:Fanuc (FANUY)Teradyne (TER)Intuitive Surgical (ISRG)Zebra Technologies (ZBRA)Manhattan Associates (MANH)

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MarketBeat Podcast: Investing In Innovation, Robotics, AI and Healthcare - Entrepreneur

SARASOTA, Fla. They call themselves the Blackout Robotics Team. Theyre sort of like the Ninja Turtles of engineering at Suncoast Polytechnical High School. They even have a Rafael.

Everybody knows who the four are, were the ones with the robots, everybody talks about us, said Rafael Treminio Bravo.

We all have our niche and we all adapt to what roles need to be completed, said Armand Segui.

Cannon Spencer does the designing, Quinn Coomer does the programming, Rafael does the building and Segui does the driving.

This group of seniors has been building bots together since 6th grade. Spencers living room has been turned into their personal workshop.

Its kind of fun, its like an everlasting sleepover with my best friends, working with robotics, its our favorite thing to do, said Spencer.

They say most of the time working together is a blast, but every once in a while theyll find themselves in a dispute.

Oh yea, definitely without those head butts we wouldnt go anywhere, said Bravo.

What they can all agree on is they want to be the best. Over the years theyve racked up more than 60 awards, including state and national titles.

I dont think I would do it with any other people, I could do it in college as well, but I dont think it will be the same, said Segui.

So this May 5-7 marks their final match together and their most challenging, the VEX World Championship in Dallas, where they will compete against 800 teams from around the world.

Everyone has access to the same parts, but how you use those parts is up to each team. The good news for Blackout Robotics, theyve been preparing for this since middle school.

It would be amazing, its something I dreamed of since I started robotics, wed be fulfilling the legacy of Blackout, it would be a good close on our chapter, said Coomer.

Excerpt from:

Sarasota robotics team competes for best in the world - ABC Action News Tampa Bay

Five teams from Tucumcari Diamondback STEM robotics program recently competed at the KISS Institute for Practical Robotics botball tournament in Los Lunas, and all have been invited to the international contest in Oklahoma this summer.

In botball, students design and build robots to accomplish varying challenges during the competition.

Team 806, which consisted of Caden Thomas, MiKayla Klinger and Bryson Klinger, won first place overall and first place in documentation and presentation.

Team 805, consisting of Aaron Chand, Justin Keith, Nolan Ryen and Angela Vasquez, finished second overall and earned the judges choice award because of the design and programming of their robots.

Team 803, consisting of Mesha Powell, Kaylee Brown and Alan Jimenez, won the KISS (or Keep It Simple, Student) Award by accomplishing the most with the fewest parts and least programming.

Representing Tucumcari on two other teams were Sariah Mardo, Rachel Mardo, Mary Ann Avery, David Olguin and Shane Jaggers.

The sponsors of the Tucumcari Diamondback squads are Tommy and Morisa Evans.

All of Tucumcaris teams have been invited to the international contest in Norman, Oklahoma, on July 11-15. They also were invited to a competition at the Air Force Academy in Colorado on May 21.

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Robotics teams do well in tourney - Quay County Sun

Soft, pneumatic actuators might not be a phrase that comes up in daily conversations, but more likely than not you might have benefited from their utility. The devices use compressed air to power motion, and with sensing capabilities, they've proven to be a critical backbone in a variety of applications such as assistive wearables, robotics, and rehabilitative technologies.

But theres a bit of a bottleneck in creating the little dynamic devices that have advantages like high response rates and power to input ratios. They require a manual design and fabrication pipeline, which translates to a lot of trial and error cycles to actually test and see whether the designs will work.

Scientists from MITs Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) devised a scalable pipeline to computationally design and digitally fabricate soft pneumatic actuators, called PneuAct.

Wearable assistive robotics with integrated sensing

PneuAct uses a machine knitting process not dissimilar to your grandma's plastic needle knitting but this machine operates autonomously. A human designer simply specifies the stitch and sensor design patterns in software to program how the actuator will move, and it can then be simulated before printing. The textile piece is fabricated by the knitting machine, which can be fixed to an inexpensive, off-the-shelf rubber silicone tube to complete the actuator.

The knitted actuator integrates conductive yarn for sensing, allowing the actuators to "feel" what they touch. The team cooked up several prototypes spanning an assistive glove, a soft hand, an interactive robot, and a pneumatic walking quadruped. Their devices were wrapped in a soft, yellow fabric that made them look a little bit like banana fingers.

While theres been plenty of movement in the hardware development of soft pneumatic actuators over the years a 2019 prototype of a collaborative robot used such actuators to reproduce human-like gripping in its hands the design tools havent improved with quite as much speed. Old processes have typically used polymers and molding, but the scientists used a combination of elastic and sensing stitches (with conductive yarn) that allows for programming bending of the devices when theyre inflated, and the ability to incorporate real world feedback.

For example, the team used the actuators to build a robot that sensed when it was touched specifically by human hands, and reacted to that touch.

The teams glove can be worn by a human to supplement finger muscle movement, minimizing the amount of muscle activity needed to complete tasks and motions. This could hold a lot of potential for those with injury, limited mobility, or other trauma to the fingers. The method can also be used to make an exoskeleton (wearable robotic units controlled by a computer that supplement human motion and restore locomotion and movement); to that end the researchers made a sleeve that can help wearers bend their elbow, knee, or other body parts.

Digital machine knitting, which is a very common manufacturing method in todays textile industry, enables printing a design in one go, which makes it much more scalable, says Yiyue Luo, MIT CSAIL PhD student and lead author of a new paper about the research. Soft pneumatic actuators are intrinsically compliant and flexible, and combined with intelligent materials, theyve become a necessary force in many robots and assistive technologies and rapid fabrication, with our design tool, can hopefully increase ease and ubiquity.

Making sense of sensors

One type of sensing the team incorporated was called resistive pressure sensing, where the actuator sends pressure. When fabricating a robotic gripper, it would try to grab onto something, and the pressure sensor would sense how much force was being applied to the object, and then it would try to see whether the grasp was successful or not. The other type is capacitive sensing, where the sensor discerns some information on the materials that the actuator is getting in touch with.

The actuators are sturdy no yarn was harmed in the process. One limitation of the system is that they were limited to tube-shaped actuators, because its very easy to buy them off the shelf. A logical next step is exploring actuators of different shapes, to avoid being constrained by that single structure. Another extension the scientists will explore is extending the tool to incorporate a task-driven, optimization-based design, where users can specify target poses and optimal stitch patterns that can be automatically synthesized.

Our software tool is fast, easy to use, and it accurately previews users' designs, allowing them to quickly iterate virtually while only needing to fabricate once. But this process still requires some trial-and-error from humans. Can a computer reason about how textiles should be physically programmed in actuators to allow for rich, sensing-driven behavior? That's the next frontier, says Andrew Spielberg, postdoc in materials science and mechanical engineering at Harvard University, another author on the paper.

Luo wrote the paper alongside Kui Wu, former MIT CSAIL PhD student, Spielberg, MIT postdoc Michael Foshey, and MIT professors Tomas Palacios, Daniela Rus, and Wojciech Matusik. They presented the paper at the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.

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Soft assistive robotic wearables get a boost from rapid design tool - MIT News

BERKELEY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Ambi Robotics, the leader in AI-powered robotic parcel sorting systems for supply chain operations, today unveiled its new headquarters in Berkeley, Calif. to support company growth and new product development. Ambi Robotics is ramping up deployments of AmbiSort systems ahead of peak season as more shipping and logistics brands grapple with surging ecommerce demand. The new headquarters boasts 33,000 square feet of space for the company to continue its mission to solve the supply chains most complex problems while helping people handle more than ever before.

Relocating our headquarters back to Berkeley was a logical step in our business growth strategy, says Jim Liefer, CEO of Ambi Robotics. This decision was fueled by the need to accommodate the growth of our company as we remain focused on deployments and supporting the implementation of hundreds of AmbiSort AI-powered robotic sorting systems in production across the US.

The new office location will accommodate the capacity for growing teams in customer support, engineering, AI research, operations, and software development. The new Berkeley headquarters footprint increased over 500% as the team more than quadrupled its size in one year. Ambi Robotics was previously located in a 6,000 square foot office space in Emeryville, Calif.

We are thrilled to be closer to where it all began, just a few miles from the heart of the UC Berkeley campus where our founding team met while pursuing our Ph.D.s,'' says Stephen McKinley, Co-Founder and VP of Operations at Ambi Robotics. Ambi Robotics is built on the power of people - people working together to build extraordinary systems that empower our workforce to handle more. We are building a one-of-a-kind headquarters to foster the growth of our dedicated team and an environment that empowers our team at Ambi Robotics to handle more too.

The newly remodeled headquarters, now re-architected and designed to support the development of advanced supply chain technologies, boasts features that build the human experience for all employees.

At Ambi Robotics, we believe that when people are respected and valued, they become more engaged, says Sandra Kazee, VP of Finance at Ambi Robotics. We are committed to building an inclusive working environment for our team where all employees can be their best, authentic selves.

About Ambi Robotics

Ambi Robotics is an artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics company developing advanced solutions that scale e-commerce operations to meet demand while empowering humans to work smarter. The companys industry-leading AI operating system, AmbiOS, leverages advanced simulation-to-reality technology to operate highly-dexterous robotic systems. Founded in 2018, the world's top roboticists, AI researchers, and leading business professionals work together to build the supply chain's most valued systems. The company is located in Berkeley, Calif. For more information, please visit http://www.ambirobotics.com.

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Ambi Robotics Returns to Berkeley and Expands Headquarters, Investing In People and Infrastructure To Support Deployment Growth - Business Wire

Plans already have started being discussed about bringing the FIRST Robotics Arkansas Regional back to Searcy next year, according to Tim Westbrook, the Searcy Beats and Eats event coordinator for Tinkerfest, which was held in conjunction with the regional at Harding University at the end of March.

We are already talking about plans for bringing this back next year if we have a proper regional with a larger space and we are in conversations with the Searcy Public School District about that as well, Westbrook said. If all that comes true, wed expect about 40 to 50 teams coming back to Searcy.

The regional held in the Rhodes-Reaves Field House on March 31-April 2 featured 19 teams. Tinkerfest was held April 1 right outside the field house.

Westbrook told the Searcy Advertising and Tourism Promotion Commission, which provided funding for both the regional and Tinkerfest, that most of those who came in for the regional were from out of the town.

We definitely had people coming in buying food and staying in hotels here, he said. We estimated about 1,500 to 2,000 spectators that came in and out of the Rhodes-Reaves Field House over the weekend.

Westbrook said he has been told that there are 12-15 active robotics teams at this level in Arkansas, and seven out of the 12 qualified for the World Championship, so this is a resurgence of STEM and robotics in the state post-COVID and so were excited about what the future holds.

Turning to Tinkerfest, Westbrook said, We estimated about somewhere in the ballpark of 4,000 people that came. We had several food trucks. People that were selling things were satisfied so thats a good indicator for me.

Westbrook said the director of the Arkansas Regional came out and saw what was being done and said, Every year. Every year we need to do this every year. So that was exciting to hear that kind of feedback as well.

Commissioner Rees Jones said he went to both events and it was impressive. He said he didnt grow up doing activities like robotics.

Its just really impressive the number of teams that were there, even 19 teams, Jones said. You are watching them compete and how they do their process is just fascinating, and then Tinkerfest I thought was really good. It was pretty good. The weather was good. It was a little chilly. We had a lot of people out there.

The little experiments that they were doing where people were watching in the audience, it was really, really neat. Its exciting to bring stuff like that to Searcy. This is just another level of service that we can provide.

Jones also said he thought it was really neat that a team came all the way from Mexico to compete in robotics.

Commission Chairman Chris Howell asked about space concerns with the field house, and Westbrook responded, We need more space. We were at capacity and for this to happen annually we need to hold about 50 teams, which would be fair ... if we go over that, that would be great.

Commissioner Jim House asked Westbrook if Searcy had another building big enough for robotics events. Westbrook told him they have been talking with Searcy Superintendent Dr. Bobby Hart about using the new arena being built at Searcy High School. Westbrook said he wasnt sure when the arena will be ready but they would be looking forward to using it. It was also mentioned that the Ganus Activities Center at Harding might be able to be used if bleachers were brought in.

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Return of robotics regional being considered, with more space needed for 40 to 50 teams - Searcy Daily Citizen