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

Video Friday is your weekly collection of superior robotics movies, collected by your mates at IEEE Spectrum robotics. We additionally publish 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 Could 2025, CHARLOTTE, N.C.

ICRA 2025: 19–23 Could 2025, ATLANTA, GA.

London Humanoids Summit: 29–30 Could 2025, LONDON

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

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

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

Get pleasure from at present’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 handoffs and that further little little bit of HRI with what we’d name eye contact if these robots had faces. However remember the fact that you’re near finest case for robotic manipulation, and that if the robots had been given the bag as a substitute of well-spaced objects on a single shade background, or if the fridge had a standard human quantity of stuff in it, they is perhaps 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 lower 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 ] by way of [ Science Robotics ]

I don’t find out about you, however I all the time dance higher when getting crushed with a stick.

[ Unitree Robotics ]

That is huge information, individuals: 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 US $100, abroad delivery included.

[ Ham Ham ] by way of [ 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 ]

Pleased fortieth Birthday to the MIT Media Lab!

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

[ MIT Media Lab ]

Whereas most mushy pneumatic grippers that function with a single management parameter (comparable to stress or airflow) are restricted to a single greedy modality, this text introduces a brand new methodology 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 power barrier of the bistable mechanism, enabling modifications in triggering sensitivity and permitting swift transitions between greedy modes. This ends in 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 ] by way of [ BruBotics ]

Thanks, Bram!

On this article, we current a design idea, during 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 examine of vibration-driven soft robots in a extra sophisticated and confined setting, with potential functions in inspection duties.

[ Paper ] by way of [ IEEE Transactions on Robots ]

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