Category Archives: Robotics

Chipotle Mexican Grill is now testing robots to man the tortilla chips-making in its restaurants' kitchen. The company thought of this as one way to combat the labor shortage that it is facing today.

Chipotle has teamed up with Miso Robotics to create the type of machine it needs in the kitchen. With its partnership with the casual dining chain, the robotics automation firm's chief executive officer, Michael Bell, said that "automation is the solution to the labor shortage in the United States today." The chief also confirmed that robots would soon be making the tortilla chips at Chipotle outlets in the country.

"The restaurant industry had a labor gap before the pandemic and the pandemic just accelerated this big gap between the number of jobs and the available labor," Fox Business quoted Bell as saying in a statement. "It is not as easy as it may look but the very specific way they (tortilla chip-making robots) are made is - technology now can follow and do exactly the same way that a human does."

The Miso Robotics chief went on to say that he knows Chipotle has very high culinary standards, so its method on how it makes its chips is superb. For this, Bell said that they are happy to accept the challenge of creating the tortilla-making robot that goes well with Chipotle's high standards, and they are proud of the results.

It was last month when Chipotle first announced about its testing for a robot that makes its tortillas. The trial was carried out at the restaurant's innovation hub in Irvine, California, and before this year ends, Chipotle is looking to formally debut the robot called "Chippy" in its stores in some U.S. states.

"When Chipotle challenged us to see if our technology could meet the brand's high standards for culinary quality, we couldn't wait to flex our engineering and design muscles," Miso Robotics chief said in a previous press release. "This partnership will allow us to move into new territory to help improve back-of-house functions and assist team members with their day-to-day responsibilities."

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Chipotle puts robots on trial in the kitchen to address labor shortage - EconoTimes

Kingman Kingman FIRST Robotics Team 60 placed 12th overall and eighth in the semifinals in the FIRST Nevada Las Vegas Regional competition.

The team landed 12th place after their first match against local Nevada teams and never went below that rank when competing against 43 other teams from around the world. Teams in attendance were from as far away as Brazil, Turkey and Mexico.

According to a Team 60 news release, the competition was held from Thursday, March 31 to Saturday, April 2. The semifinals placement allowed them to choose an alliance for semifinals, where they chose the Highscalers from Boulder City, Nevada and the Patribots from San Diego, California to work with against the number one alliance teams.

After losing the first match in the semifinals, Team 60, known as the Bionic Bulldogs, battled back for a win, entered the tiebreaker going to tie, and eventually lost the fourth match of the first semifinals round.

Team 60 won the Gracious Professionalism Award to recognize the true spirit of the team. Team 60 was recognized by the many judges for their acts of helping out teams in need. Whether loaning out tools, mentors or students to assist in building or coding or muscle power, Team 60 was there, the news release noted.

It was a fun-filled and exhausting three-day event that was well worth the hard work that the students, mentors and parents put in over the past four months, team mentor Jody Schanaman said.

Team members will be back in the shop preparing for upcoming commitments and planning for their annual FLL Camp in June.

Schanaman thanked the teams sponsors and members of the community that have assisted where needed. The team is always looking for new team members (students in grades 7-12) as well as mentors and sponsors.

We are also looking for assistance both financially and professionally for our engineering/stem building as we move forward with funding and completing the project, the news release stated.

If youd like to assist the team in any way, or if you have questions, call Jody Schanaman at 928-279-5274 or Celeste Lucier at 928-377-8586.

The team advanced to the competition in Las Vegas after placing third in a regional competition in Flagstaff on March 9.

FIRST stands for For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology.

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Kingman robotics team finishes in top 12 at international competition - Kdminer

Press release11 April 2022 at 09:45 am

The acquisition combines the industry's leading integration solutions and automation platform services, providing customers with new process efficiency and even more cost-effective methods for data-based management. The acquisition supports Digia's strategy of growing its scalable services.

On 11 April 2022, Digia Plc and MOST Digital Oy signed an agreement through which Digia will acquire MOST Digital's entire share capital. It is planned that the acquisition will be completed on 2 May 2022. The MOST Digital Group includes MOST Digital Oy and MOST Digital Sweden AB. With this acquisition, Digia will grow its scalable services and bolster its expertise and growth in the integration and API business with automation platform services. The companies have already been working as partners for two years now.

MOST Digital employs 34 software robotics and artificial intelligence professionals at its locations in Helsinki, Lempl, Rovaniemi and Stockholm. MOST Digital provides continuous Robotics as a Service solutions for business process automation built on top of an open-source platform, developed in house, as well as its own cloud solution that harnesses Microsoft Azure.

"This acquisition is the logical next step in expanding Digia's service capabilities, the strategic development of Digia's Managed Digital Core service area and the whole company's international growth," says Janne Tuominen, Senior Vice President at Digia. "Our customers' services generate and utilise data at an ever-faster pace. By joining forces with MOST Digital we amplify our expertise by combining integration with an automation platform, eliminating manual steps in customers' processes and providing better tools for data management and availability," says Tuominen.

"MOST Digital has systematically implemented its growth programme, which revolves around internationalisation and the development of service scalability. The outlook in the sector is very good, and companies' and organisations' investments in digitalisation through automation platform services keep growing at a high rate. Digia and MOST Digital share a strong growth agenda, which they have previously pursued through their partnership. This cooperation will deepen further thanks to this M&A," says Olli Ainasvuori, CEO of MOST Digital. "Digia has strong delivery capacity, and MOST Digital has top professionals in software robotics and artificial intelligence. Together with Digia, we can provide the customers of both companies with end-to-end hyperautomation solutions as a one-stop shop."

The parties have agreed not to publish the acquisition price. MOST Digital had net sales of around EUR 2.8 million in the fiscal year ending in December 2021. The acquisition will have no personnel impact. MOST Digital's figures will be consolidated with the Digia Group as from the beginning of May 2022.

Further information:

Media contacts: communications@digia.com

Janne TuominenSenior Vice President, Digia PlcTel. +358 40 839 4370janne.tuominen(at)digia.com

Olli AinasvuoriCEO, MOST DigitalTel. +358 40 718 6632olli.ainasvuori(a)mostdigital.fi

Digia in brief

Digia is a software and service company that helps its customers renew themselves in the networked world. There are more than 1,300 of us working at Digia. Our roots are in Finland and we operate both in Finland and abroad. We are building a world in which digitalisation makes a difference - together with our customers and partners. Digia's net sales totalled EUR 156 million in 2021. The company is listed on Nasdaq Helsinki (DIGIA). digia.com

MOST Digital in brief

MOST Digital Oy helps companies focus their resources on value-creating work by streamlining operations through software robotics. The company utilizes its own cloud-based software robotics platform, which enables cost-effective and secure automation in data work. The solution implemented by the company is an extensible RaaS cloud service. MOST Digital is an ISO 27001-certified and Finnish Key Flag awarded company that was selected as one of Finland's 15 strongest technology growth companies in 2020 (Deloitte Technology Fast 50, 2020). mostdigital.fi

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Digia expands its scalable services with Robotics as a Service capabilities by acquiring MOST Digital - Marketscreener.com

Scientists in the UK have developed a 3D-printed fingertip that can touch and feel surfaces almost like humans do.

Researchers at the University of Bristol say the technology could make robots considerably more agile and even help improve prosthetics.

Being able to 3D print tactile skin could create robots that are more dexterous or significantly improve the performance of prosthetic hands by giving them an in-built sense of touch, said Nathan Lepora, professor of robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) at the University of Bristol.

Lepora and his colleagues developed the artificial fingertip using a 3D-printed mesh of pin-like papillae that mimics the movement observed between the inner and outer layers of human skin.

The team said the sense of touch of the robotic fingertip was "startlingly" close to that of real skin.

Back in the 1980s, scientists tracked how we register touch by counting the number of neurons that were fired when people made contact with different textured surfaces.

Leporas team said the robotic fingertip works in a similar way, and that it can produce artificial nerve signals similar to recordings from real tactile neurons.

For me, the most exciting moment was when we looked at our artificial nerve recordings from the 3D-printed fingertip and they looked like the real recordings from over 40 years ago, Lepora said.

Those recordings are very complex with hills and dips over edges and ridges, and we saw the same pattern in our artificial tactile data.

The findings were published in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface.

While the team found a "remarkably close match" between the artificial fingertip and human nerve signals, it was not as sensitive to fine detail.

"The robot sense is just a bit more blurred than the human sense," Lepora said.

He suspects thats because the artificial skin is thicker than human skin, and his team is now exploring how to 3D-print structures on the same microscopic scale.

Earlier this year, scientists from the Max Planck Institute in Germany revealed details of their own development of an artificial fingertip named Insight.

Both technologies use cameras, but the German system works in a different way.

What we do is we shine different coloured lights onto that surface and then we can, in a very fine detail, see how everything moves by the change of the lighting, said Georg Martius, director of intelligent systems at the Max Planck Institute.

Both the sensors and the cameras then convert the information into signals that feed into AI systems to recreate a robotic version of touch.

"We can actually measure forces from very light touch, like 20g up to like 200g in very fine resolution, so that's actually surprisingly accurate, Martius said.

The advance in touch technology - known as haptic or 3D technology - still has a long way to go before it could be used in prosthetics.

Martius, who is also working on developing artificial skin, said there are many ways in which machines can't replicate the sensitivity of the human fingertip.

"These sensors measure forces, and sheer forces. That's something that they can do very well, he said.

But our skin can also, for instance, sense vibrations and temperature, which these methods cant achieve yet, he explained.

For now, the teams in the UK and Germany hope their technology will improve productivity in industrial settings.

"The focus in my lab is more on the integration of these fingertips into robot hands, to give the robot hands autonomy and dexterity using artificial intelligence, so that you can use those robot hands to do the tasks that we would do with our hands," said Lepora.

For more on this story, watch the video in the media player above.

Excerpt from:

Artificial fingertip with 'human-like' sense of touch could improve robots and prosthetics - Euronews

Before droves of people descend on a convention center for a trade show or conference, the hall must be carefully divided up to accommodate corporate show booths, walkways for attendees, spaces for administrators/security and much more. The process of defining the layout and marking it up for construction crews is often done with humans laboriously measuring and marking distances, but Lionel can do all of this for you. Once given a plan, it zooms along empty convention halls while precisely marking all of the dimensions for the schematics that you have in mind.

Lionel, the floor-marking robot, was made specifically for the organizers of trade shows and conferences.

Lionel isnt a robot that youd typically think of when you imagine new applications of technology, but it fills a niche that there is strong demand for. Identifying use cases like Lionels and showing that there is a robotic solution for them is part of the responsibility of business strategy managers like Vuyo Makhuvha.

Vuyo works in building August Robotics mobile robotics portfolio which at the moment comprises 2 robots. Their latest robot Diego, Disinfection on the Go! Is a mobile UV-C robot design which was released in March 2021. Diego provides hospital-grade disinfection for hotel rooms and public spaces in a way that is safe and easy to use and allows establishments to increase safety and differentiate their hygiene programmes.

Identifying use cases like Lionels or Diegos, and showing that there is a robotic solution for them is part of the responsibility of business strategy managers like Vuyo Makhuvha. Keep reading to see her explanation of how a non-engineer can have a significant impact on robot design, how she managed the experience of leaving her home in South Africa for her new home of Hong Kong, and much more.

Vuyo is a bright mathematical mind from South Africa that had narrowed down her area of study to two subjects when preparing to enter the University of Cape Town (UCT): Engineering and Actuarial Science. In what felt like a gut-wrenching decision, she chose to study Actuarial Science. Unbeknownst to her, she would eventually return to working with engineers in good time.

Vuyo excelled at UCT, eventually earning both a Bachelors degree and a Masters Degree (with a Masters Thesis)! All the while, her education was enriched by the prestigious Allan Gray Orbis Fellowship, which she had been awarded after graduating high school. The fellowship not only covered her tuition, but also taught her about entrepreneurial thinking as well as placed her amongst a community of like-minded individuals.

And the Fellowships support doesnt end there! After those four years [with the Allan Gray Orbis Fellowship] you can tap into additional support. For example, if you want to be an entrepreneur, you basically say Hey I want to start a business; Can you help me? And theyll have different programs [to support you].

Its amazing. Its one of the experiences that Ive had that has really encouraged me.

While getting her Masters Degree, Vuyo had gotten a taste of the broader world outside of Actuarial Science and decided that she wanted to see more of it by working for a consulting company after she graduated: McKinsey & Company. There, her intention was to gain exposure to [the] questions that businesses are answering for themselves and McKinsey was able to give her that exposure. She was placed onto teams where they established strategies that would grow their revenue by X [or something similarly] for big name companies that youve heard of all of your life or made certain that a merger went [the way it should have]. This diverse set of experiences was helpful for narrowing down her interests and for increasing her confidence.

.. What I really took away from [all of that] was that I can do anything. There are a lot of specialized fields but I can be quite involved in them by answering questions like How do we commercialize this? or What features do we need?

Her bolstered confidence and passion for commercialization would then carry her across a continent and into her current role at August Robotics. After 2 years at McKinsey, one of which was spent as a consultant in Asia, Vuyo decided she wanted to experience working at an early stage start-up in emerging tech and she happened to find a role on the Alumni network job board.

At that startup, August Robotics, she ended up becoming a Business Strategy Manager, working with a team of highly-experienced engineers and scientists to develop new robotics-based solutions. To describe her role simply, Vuyo explains that My job every day is to make sure that were designing a robot that fulfills our clients needs. This can lead to tension at times, as Vuyo challenges experienced technical experts in their fields.

I always say that my job as a commercial person is to dream really, really big. Your job as an engineering team is to tell me Woah! Slow down. This is what we can do.

And if were not having that kind of tension, then Im not doing my job right. Because I need to be the person who can imagine this amazing product for our customers, especially in the first couple of weeks when were coming together with the concept.

Youre supposed to say Woah! We cant do this right now, lets pull it back and do this Do you really need that feature right now. Isnt that something we can do far later in the future?

Its your job to hold me back.

Otherwise, were not going to be able to make new things that our customers never thought of. The tension is there, but its a necessary tension. And as long as its done in a way thats professional and respectful, I think its good.

August Robotics has fostered a culture where this tension can be expressed in such a professional and respectful way. Its one of the reasons that Vuyo loves it there and recommends more passionate Black roboticists join her at August, if possible.

She plans to stay there as long as the culture remains one in which she can freely explore and challenge her peers and herself as they continue to seek out the unique use cases that only a robot can solve in the world. The call of entrepreneurship still lingers in her ear, however, and she plans to one day use the lessons she has learned as an Allan Gray Orbis Fellow to make an impactful business.

While she is still relatively new in her current role at August Robotics, Vuyo has overcome several challenges that she thinks others could learn from. Her transition from McKinsey and Company to August Robotics required a transition from her native Africa to Hong Kong. There she went from being in a majority South African context to being in a majority Asian context.

I think being a Black person in any place that is not predominantly black is always going to be different. Especially in a place like Asia, where theres so few of us. Yeah, I get stared at [but] its not a malicious thing most of the time. I think that most of the time its just like: Hm. Why are you here?

To overcome the challenge of feeling isolated, she learned to embrace the feeling of benign curiosity coming from her new neighbors. The feeling inspired Vuyo to make an unwritten rule: Every time I see a black person, I always say hi to them. I can go through a whole day without seeing another black person. Its weird. So, [I] just have to acknowledge that were both in this whenever I see them.

Vuyo repeatedly expressed how valuable it is to work in an environment as supportive as the one that she has found in August Robotics and recommends that you look for:

[a place] where you trust the people that you work with, you feel like people respect and trust you, and you never feel weird about not knowing something. Because then you operate from a place of stability or comfort. Of course, Im going to work really really hard; I dont want to do anything wrong and Im going to be really really careful.

I do it not because Im in fear about what the repercussions will be. I do it because Im comfortable enough that I can contribute to what our team is doing, and that I feel that responsibility to contribute and to make our team successful. And so I dont spend time worrying about things that I dont need to be worrying about. I spend time worrying about the [robotics] problems that we have.

Finding and contributing to an environment like that is what has allowed Vuyo to thrive and is what she plans to foster in every organization she works at (or starts!) in the future.

Finally, Vuyos advice to young people interested in robotics (from the commercial side or not) is:

To continue to be driven by what [you] think is interesting and exciting and stimulating, and to not for a second think that [youre] not capable or not worthy.

Because [you] have to try stuff and not get in your own way. Just believe that youre good. That you have creative and exciting ideas and then go and apply that creativity to things that you find interesting and exciting.

Feel free to follow August Robotics to find out more about the products Vuyo is helping to launch!

Feel free to connect to Vuyo via LinkedIn.

Drafts of this article were corrected and improved by Vuyo Makhuvha, Sophia Williams, and Nailah Seale. All current errors are the fault of Kwesi Rutledge. Please reach out to him if you spot any!

Black In Robotics addresses the systemic inequities found in our robotics community by focusing on three primary pillars - community, advocacy, and accountability.

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Black in Robotics 'Meet The Members' series: Vuyo Makhuvha - Robohub

Were committed to providing our customers best-in-class grocery shopping experiences, says Charles J. McWeeney, VP, Technology, Innovation & Strategy at Wakefern Food Corp.

Tallys technology is another tool to help our store operations and staff while creating new opportunities to maximise customer satisfaction.

The retail industry is facing a unique and unprecedented set of challenges, and companies must thoughtfully adopt technology to address those challenges while continuing to provide a stellar level of service that customers expect, says Brad Bogolea, Co-Founder and CEO at Simbe Robotics.

Tally is a cost-effective solution that supports the work of store teams and enhances the retail experience for associates and customers.

Earlier this year, Israel-based computer vision startup Trigo announced a partnership with Wakefern Food Corp.

In a LinkedIn post, Trigo said: This year we will help Wakefern convert and develop hi-tech store formats that are exclusive to their brands, accelerate their growth, and pave the way for frictionless shopping at US customers favourite supermarket brands across the eastern US seaboard.

It added: Through this partnership, US-based independent retailers can compete with multinational retailers and global tech giants alike on cutting-edge shopping experiences.

"With Trigo's frictionless technology, Wakefern Food Corp. is opening up access to cutting edge innovation for our members," said Charlie McWeeney, VP of Technology, Innovation, & Strategy, Wakefern Food Corp.

"We are excited to pilot its solution and offer our consumers the ultimate in checkout convenience."

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Wakefern Food Corp. tests out Simbe Robotics Tally technology Retail Technology Innovation Hub - Retail Technology Innovation Hub

Julienne Greer, Emotional Robotics Living Lab director and professor of theater arts, social robotics and performance, center, and social robot Nao, right, watch social robot Pepper, left, on March 9at the Emotional Robotics Living Lab. The study on making emotional robots, which was a part of the 2019 UTA Interdisciplinary Research Program, was redesigned to accommodate no face-to-face contact.

Social robots, also known as emotional robots, are machines that can communicate socially with human beings, said Julienne Greer, the Emotional Robotics Living Lab director and professor of theater arts, social robotics and performance.

Greer found a way to bring together her seemingly odd combination of passions, theater and robotics into social robotics.

The Emotional Robotics Living Lab looks at how social robots can reflect the authenticity of human connection and help act as a replacement for the same.

Human beings crave social interaction and connections with others. But with the stringent quarantine and social distancing policies that came with the rise of COVID-19, many have been deprived of these essentials, Greer said.

I have a lifetime of understanding theater, connection and performance and how much human beings want to engage with each other. Not just socially, but emotionally, she said. The thing that really caught my eye was when some of these robots were being branded as emotional robots.

The sense of emotions is a discipline that theater and film are closely interconnected with, but Greer wanted to look at how these areas were connected to robots.

One study they explored in the lab was called Using Arts and Social Sciences to Enhance Social Companion Robots Adaptive Abilities to Improve Health Outcomes and was conducted as part of the 2019 UTA Interdisciplinary Research Program, according to a UTA press release.

Greer pushes a sensor on humanoid social robot Naos hand March 9 at the Emotional Robotics Living Lab. Greer teaches a robots, digital humanities and theater course along with leading the UTA-funded lab.

The study was a collaboration with labs led by Greer, Manfred Huber, professor of computer science and engineering, Kathryn Daniel, associate professor of nursing, and Hunter Ball, assistant professor of psychology.

Kalvry Cooper, recent UTA alumna and former research assistant at the lab, said the study examined how exercise affects older adults cognitive memory using social robots.

The study took place in an assisted-living facility, Greer said. However, they had to completely reframe the study because of COVID-19, as the researchers could not enter the living facility along with their robots, so the older adults were alone with the social robots.

These social machines are produced and programmed to connect with human beings, she said. It can do anything its programmed to do, given the flexibility and mobility of its body.

Social robots are beneficial in treating dementia, according to a study done by Greer and the team for the National Center for Biotechnology Information.

In another study, researchers discovered social robots increased engagement within the caretaker community for young adults with developmental disabilities to help with their respite.

Cooper said the robots can remind patients to take medication, check up on them, look for signs of distress and provide companionship that can emulate a human connection, especially with older adults.

Using a Beam robot, a mobile social robot with an interactive screen, participants were asked to do five exercise sets and given instructions to answer simple questions like their name or how they were feeling after a specific exercise, she said.

After the exercises and questions, they were given a questionnaire to vocalize their experience, Cooper said.

The research assistants recorded positive reactions from the participants.

Social robots can enhance life expectancy and the quality of life. It also makes people feel less lonely by imitating that emotional connections between loved ones like parents and a child or grandparents and grandchildren, she said.

Social robot Pepper demonstrates its motions March 9 in the Emotional Robotics Living Lab. The lab intends to have social robots like Pepper interact with isolated people daily at home and for caretakers.

Yet, Greer said many people feel disturbed and threatened by the idea of technology and robots replacing humans.

Cooper said this can be due to the lack of exposure people have to technology and robots.

Our society is going technological-based, like everything is happening through computers and AI systems, and its getting very techie, she said. Sometimes its not because they dont want to know about tech, its because they dont have someone there.

When asked if robots will replace humans, a humanoid social robot in the emotional robotics living lab named Pepper answered, Im here to serve humans. If there are no humans, there is no me.

Cameron Sullins, UTA alumnus and former research assistant for the study, said most of the older adults in the assisted-living smart apartments who interacted with the social robots felt enthusiastic about being able to work and interact with the robots and excited about their contributions toward the growth of new technology.

While the thought of interacting might feel weird at first, theyre catered to make humans feel comfortable, Sullins said.

[The older adults] know that these robots arent real, but like the connections that they make with [the robots] kind of feels like its real, Cooper said.

These robots make an impression through their colorful personalities, making it easy for humans to build that connection.

When asked why it was named Pepper, the robot responded, I was named Pepper because Im here to spice up your life.

Sullins said with its quirky personality and jokes, most people feel comfortable with social robots like Pepper and can build a connection quickly, differentiating itself from artificial intelligence devices like Alexa or Siri.

I dont think were going to get phones that are cranky or phones that have tiffs, Greer said. I think were going to look at social robots, machines that have a lot more of our personality in them.

The value of why humans connect is significant, and it should apply to robots as well, she said.

People should be open to robots, as they are in societys future and vice versa because humans have the desire to connect, Greer said.

The Emotional Robotics Living Lab at UTA looks at how social robots can reflect the authenticity of human connection and help act as a replacement for the same.

@ayeshahshaji

features-editor.shorthorn@uta.edu

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Professor combines theater and robotics to reflect human connection - The Shorthorn

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Vanderlande is now an integrator of the RightPick system. | Source: RightHand Robotics

RightHand Robotics, a company that creates autonomous picking robots, and Vanderlande, a robotics integrator and subsidiary of Toyota Industries, are partnering to add the RightPick 3 system to Vanderlandes smart item robotics portfolio of technologies. The companies plan to deploy the system in general merchandise warehouses and distribution centers on a global scale.

Vanderlande provides logistic automation at airports, as well as in the warehousing and parcel sectors. RightPick will join the companys portfolio of picking offerings, which includes smart item robotics, automated tote picking and goods-to-picker workstations.

We are pleased to be included with the Smart Item Robotics (SIR) portfolio of technologies, Leif Jentoft, CSO and co-founder at RightHand, said. Warehouses are under increasing pressure to accelerate order fulfillment as ecommerce orders continue to rise. We look forward to helping Vanderlande meet the needs of customers worldwide and are honored to meet their standards for advanced automated picking.

Vanderlande chose RightPick because of its real-world successes in warehouses. The platform is able to pick and place individual items in a variety of fulfillment center processes. RightPick is made up of a Universal Robots collaborative robot arm with an end effector that uses both suction and mechanical fingers to grasp items. The platform uses a vision system and control software with machine learning as a form of hand, eye coordination, providing accountability for picking success.

The market wants integrated robotics that work, so weve tested the worlds leading robot solutions, Terry Verkuijlen, Vanderlandes vice president of warehouse solutions, said. Our findings showed that RightHand Robotics use of gripper technology, vision systems and software algorithms is the best fit for automated general merchandise warehouses.

As part of the partnership, Vanderlande is joining RightHands Partner Integrator Network. RightHands other integration partners are Element Logic, Manhattan Associates, Tompkins Robotics, Okamura and SVT Robotics.

In February 2022, RightHand raised $66 million in Series C funding. The most recent round brought the company to $119.3 million raised over six rounds.

RightHand Robotics co-founder and CEO Yaro Tenzer was on The Robot Report Podcast in August 2021. Certainly a lot has changed for the company since that appearance, but the conversation sheds light into thecapabilities of RightHands innovative picking solution and much more. You can listen to that interview below.

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RightHand Robotics adds Vanderlande as integration partner - Robot Report

WATKINS GLEN-The youth robotics team Mechanical Meltdown, based in Watkins Glen, ended their season ranked number one in New York state.Each year, students from around the world put in countless hours with their teammates preparing for competitions through FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology). As they are building skills in engineering, technology, business, and teamwork, they also happen to be building a robot.At the beginning of each season, a new challenge is released. Teams immediately begin to analyze the game and consider strategies to maximize scores by weighing points versus difficulty versus cycle time for the various tasks. Over the next several months teams problem-solve through the entire engineering process to design, build and program a robot to complete the given challenges.Now finishing up its fifth year, Mechanical Meltdown brings together youth in grades 7-12 from a five-county area surrounding Watkins Glen. Current members hail from Watkins Glen, Burdett, Trumansburg, Ithaca, and Horseheads. The students, guided by mentors, collaborate to create a high-scoring robot, track their progress through technical documentation, and prepare a presentation to describe their season's journey to a panel of judges.Mechanical Meltdown earned advancement to the world championship for the third time in the 2019-20 season but was disappointed when it was suddenly canceled due to COVID-19. The following season was fully remote, so members were very excited to get back to in-person competitions. The tournament season begins with qualifying events where teams battle for a spot at the regional championship.In December 2021, Mechanical Meltdown won the top honor, the Inspire Award, at their first qualifier in Penfield, where they also became the first team to advance to the championship. In January the team competed again in Corning, where they earned the New York state high score of 239 with their alliance partners, #6955 Robovines from Ballston Spa.The high score held until the Excelsior Regional Championship, where Mechanical Meltdown beat their own state record... five times. Twenty-eight teams competed in the all-day event, which took place Sunday, March 6 at Mohawk Valley Community College in Utica.The tournament started with a series of 35 matches where teams were randomly paired to compete against another alliance of two teams. The top four teams coming out of the qualifying matches got to choose their alliance partners for elimination rounds. As a captain, Mechanical Meltdown selected #13357 IR-Lightning from Philadelphia, NY in Jefferson County and #14281 Ravena Robotics from Coeymans in Albany County.After sweeping through the semi-finals, Mechanical Meltdown's alliance was putting up scores to make a ticket to the World Championship look very promising. However, they ultimately fell in the finals through an unfortunate turn of events. During finals match one, their alliance partner lost connection and was unable to move their robot for nearly half of the match. Mechanical Meltdown put up a valiant fight alone against the opposing alliance of two very impressive teams, losing by a narrow margin of 267-246.The final blow came during finals match two when their second partner's robotic arm malfunctioned. They were unable to perform the double-capping objective as planned and instead used their much slower mechanism to deliver ducks from the carousel.Mechanical Meltdown ends their season as the highest-ranked team in New York state with a rating of 141.9 points. The overall average for the more than 150 New York teams is 43.9 points. They also go out holding the state record with a high score of 280 points, as well as second and fifth high scores of 278 and 261 respectively.Mechanical Meltdown and FLARE operate under Trumansburg Robotics, Inc. For more information, e-mail ftcflare@gmail.com.

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Almost three months before the start of automatica, which takes place from June 21 to 24 at the Munich Exhibition Center, one thing is certain: never before has there been such a wide range of collaborative robots as this year. And they are easier to use than ever.

The latter also applies to industrial robots. Here, no-code robotics allows an almost playful handling of robots.

These and many other developments pursue one goal: the democratization of robotics. In the future, anyone should be able to operate robots without special knowledge. With cobots, this is already possible thanks to simple programming options.

The problem-free integration and operation of these devices are also important reasons for their popularity.

The market for this species is currently growing considerably. Industry leader Universal Robots says it already has over 50,000 cobots in use in all kinds of applications.

Kim Povlsen, managing director of the Danish company, put the potential for cobots at around nine million units in an interview with the Handelsblatt, and sees the industry on the way to billions in sales.

So it is not surprising that many manufacturers are discovering their love for the cobot. While some qualify their standard robots for direct human-robot interaction by integrating numerous safety features, others rely on the development of special lightweight robots.

In Munich, visitors to automatica can see for themselves the advantages and disadvantages of the two different worlds. However, the hype is clearly with the lightweight cobots. Here, the competition between established manufacturers and start-ups is creating unprecedented dynamics.

Fanuc is showing three new cobot models that are characterized by their low weight and intuitive drag-and-drop programming and should therefore also be of particular interest to first-time users.

In order to meet the increasing demand, Fanuc not only wants to increase production capacities. Shinichi Tanzawa, CEO of Fanuc Europe, has another goal: We want to become the clear market leader for cobots in Europe.

What the market companions think of the idea remains to be seen. In any case, Kuka is totally committed to innovation and is presenting the LBR iisy, a cobot that, thanks to a brand-new operating system, is also intended to set standards in terms of operation. Set it up, switch it on, get started thats what Kuka promises.

ABB makes a similar promise. The new cobot families GoFa and SWIFTI should also be particularly easy to use and are characterized by high payloads and speeds. Our new cobot portfolio is the most diverse on the market, said Sami Atiya, head of ABBs Robotics & Factory Automation business.

And Yaskawa? The Japanese are showing their HC DTP Cobot series at the automatica under the motto Easy Smart No protective fence. With the new Yaskawa ecosystem, the manufacturer offers a variety of proven partner and in-house plug & play products with which the customer can set up his cobot cell in a modular way.

Anyone who thinks that only the big industrial robot manufacturers can build cobots will be taught otherwise at automatica. The number of new, young or non-industry manufacturers is growing exponentially and with it the ideas for a wide variety of cobot variants for all possible applications.

For example, igus, previously known primarily as a manufacturer of cable drag chains, is showing the attractively priced plastic cobot ReBeL, which, with a weight of around ten kilograms, lowers the barriers to entry to a minimum.

This means that the machine will be used in particular for simple applications where robotics has not previously been worthwhile.

Neura Robotics, among others, operates at the other end of the range. With the cobots Lara and Maira, the Swabians present highly developed production assistants with a clean design, speech recognition and outstanding performance.

Between low cost and high end, manufacturers from all over the world, including Comau, Denso, Doosan, Franka Emika, Kassow, Omron, Rethink, Stubli, Techman and many other cobot solutions for all kinds of applications will be present.

Not to be forgotten: Agile Robots, the most valuable German robotics start-up, is also exhibiting at automatica. The latest developments of this company are not only eagerly awaited by large investors.

The programming of classic industrial robots is also about to undergo a minor revolution. Wherever applications allow it, new methods will replace classic high-level language programming in the future.

Its not just about giving newcomers a barrier-free introduction to robotics. In fact, no-code robotics can reduce the programming time for many applications by a factor of 70, believe it or not.

At least thats what the young company Wandelbots promises. With its pen programming, the Dresden start-up is turning the programming world upside down.

For example, if a welding path needs to be programmed, the user simply traces it with the so-called TracePen. Anyone can do it and its breathtakingly fast. It also saves expensive programming time. An extraordinary innovation that the automatica audience gets to see.

Like many other robot manufacturers in Munich, Epson is also presenting a no-code programming environment for robotics beginners with little or no specialist knowledge. This allows the manufacturers four-axis robots to be operated quickly and easily.

Fruitcore Robotics is also taking an interesting approach to adapting the robot programming exactly to the skills of the user.

The Constance-based company now offers four software packages for its Horst robots: Starter, Profi, Digital and Premium. If the requirements change, users simply book a different package. This creates maximum flexibility and future security.

The exhibits at automatica prove it: people are finally moving into the focus of developments. And the current level of development suggests that robots will be as easy to use as a smartphone in the near future.

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