Robot Videos: Figure Helix, Swimming Robots, MIT Media Lab

Video Friday is your weekly choice of superior robotics movies, collected by your folks at IEEE Spectrum robotics. We additionally put up a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics occasions for the following few months. Please send us your events for inclusion.

RoboCup German Open: 12–16 March 2025, NUREMBERG, GERMANY

German Robotics Conference: 13–15 March 2025, NUREMBERG, GERMANY

European Robotics Forum: 25–27 March 2025, STUTTGART, GERMANY

RoboSoft 2025: 23–26 April 2025, LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND

ICUAS 2025: 14–17 Might 2025, CHARLOTTE, NC

ICRA 2025: 19–23 Might 2025, ATLANTA, GA

London Humanoids Summit: 29–30 Might 2025, LONDON

IEEE RCAR 2025: 1–6 June 2025, TOYAMA, JAPAN

2025 Energy Drone & Robotics Summit: 16–18 June 2025, HOUSTON, TX

RSS 2025: 21–25 June 2025, LOS ANGELES

ETH Robotics Summer School: 21–27 June 2025, GENEVA

IAS 2025: 30 June–4 July 2025, GENOA, ITALY

ICRES 2025: 3–4 July 2025, PORTO, PORTUGAL

IEEE World Haptics: 8–11 July 2025, SUWON, KOREA

IFAC Symposium on Robotics: 15–18 July 2025, PARIS

RoboCup 2025: 15–21 July 2025, BAHIA, BRAZIL

Take pleasure in as we speak’s movies!

We’re introducing Helix, a generalist Imaginative and prescient-Language-Motion (VLA) mannequin that unifies notion, language understanding, and discovered management to beat a number of longstanding challenges in robotics.

That is reasonably spectacular; my favourite half might be the hand-offs and that additional little little bit of HRI with what we’d name eye contact if these robots had faces. However take into account that you’re near greatest case for robotic manipulation, and that if the robots had been given the bag as an alternative of well-spaced objects on a single colour background, or if the fridge had a traditional human quantity of stuff in it, they may be having a a lot totally different time of it. Additionally, is it simply me, or is the sound on this video very bizarre? Like, some issues make noise, some issues don’t, and the robots themselves often sound extra like somebody simply added in some ‘mushy actuator sound’ or one thing. Additionally additionally, I’m of a suspicious nature, and when there’s an abrupt reduce between ‘robotic grasps door’ and ‘robotic opens door,’ I assume the worst.

[ Figure ]

Researchers at EPFL have developed a extremely agile flat swimming robotic. This robotic is smaller than a bank card, and propels on the water floor utilizing a pair of undulating mushy fins. The fins are pushed at resonance by artificial muscles, permitting the robotic to carry out advanced maneuvers. Sooner or later, this robotic can be utilized for monitoring water high quality or assist with measuring fertilizer concentrations in rice fields

[ Paper ] through [ Science Robotics ]

I don’t learn about you, however I at all times dance higher when getting overwhelmed with a stick.

[ Unitree Robotics ]

That is huge information, folks: Sweet Bite Ham Ham, one of many best and most ineffective robots of all time, has a brand new deal with.

All yours for about $100, abroad delivery included.

[ Ham Ham ] through [ Robotstart ]

MagicLab has introduced the launch of its first era self-developed dexterous hand product, the MagicHand S01. The MagicHand S01 has 11 levels of freedom in a single hand. The MagicHand S01 has a hand load capability of as much as 5 kilograms, and in work environments, can carry a great deal of over 20 kilograms.

[ MagicLab ]

Thanks, Ni Tao!

No, I’m not creeped out in any respect, why?

[ Clone Robotics ]

Glad fortieth Birthday to the MIT Media Lab!

Since 1985, the MIT Media Lab has supplied a house for interdisciplinary analysis, transformative applied sciences, and progressive approaches to fixing a few of humanity’s best challenges. As we have a good time our fortieth anniversary 12 months, we’re looking forward to many years extra of imagining, designing, and inventing a future through which everybody has the chance to flourish.

[ MIT Media Lab ]

Whereas most mushy pneumatic grippers that function with a single management parameter (akin to strain or airflow) are restricted to a single greedy modality, this text introduces a brand new technique for incorporating a number of greedy modalities into vacuum-driven mushy grippers. That is achieved by combining stiffness manipulation with a bistable mechanism. Adjusting the airflow tunes the vitality barrier of the bistable mechanism, enabling modifications in triggering sensitivity and permitting swift transitions between greedy modes. This leads to an distinctive versatile gripper, able to dealing with a various vary of objects with various sizes, shapes, stiffness, and roughness, managed by a single parameter, airflow, and its interplay with objects.

[ Paper ] through [ BruBotics ]

Thanks, Bram!

On this article, we current a design idea, through which a monolithic mushy physique is included with a vibration-driven mechanism, referred to as Leafbot. This proposed investigation goals to construct a basis for additional terradynamics research of vibration-driven soft robots in a extra difficult and confined setting, with potential functions in inspection duties.

[ Paper ] through [ IEEE Transactions on Robots ]

We current a hybrid aerial-ground robotic that mixes the flexibility of a quadcopter with enhanced terrestrial mobility. The car incorporates a passive, reconfigurable single wheeled leg, enabling seamless transitions between flight and two floor modes: a secure stance and a dynamic cruising configuration.