Food drone delivery ideas are taking off all over the place. But is it a business or just an advertizing stunt? Tacocopter was one of the first although still more of a theory than a practice. Stanford Robotics Club is carrying on the mission and delivering subs to students. Joining the ranks are an African beer drone, a UK pizza delivery copter and an aerial sushi tray. The OppiKoppi beer drone will be parachuting beverages to music festival attendees.

The aerial sushi tray at YO! Sushi is also handguided. It’s based on a Parrot AR.drone and as the tray sits on top of the rotors getting your food is a dicey proposition. That’s ok though, the aerial sushi tray is all about creating buzz for a new product line, not replacing wait staff. And most likely, the DomiCopter is an advertizing stunt not a serious logistics play. One of the project partners with Dominos Pizza is a creative agency, T + Biscuits.

Face it, drones are not ideal for payload delivery under most business conditions. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t some serious waves taking shape under the froth. Matternet are making a bolder claim. Creating a large net of drone transport for small and critical supplies in areas where there isn’t other infrastructure. Matternet did field trials in the Dominican Republic and Haiti in late 2012. Matternet aim to create “the next paradigm for transportation using a network of unmanned aerial vehicles”.

This sort of disruptive platform play thinking saw Google launch Project Loon in Christchurch a few days ago. Stratospheric balloon arrays bounce internet signals to places previously inaccessible or disaster affected.  Two thirds of the world’s population is still without internet access and Christchurch is a symbolic place to role out the first stages of what is a global plan.

The 2011 earthquake in New Zealand’s 2nd largest city killed 185, destroyed half the city center and 80-90% of the area’s infrastructure. 2 years on many residents remain without permanent housing and the city’s central shopping mall has only just reopened – in a shipping container structure. It’s now estimated that it will take the New Zealand economy 50-100 years to recover from the 40$B repair bill. This makes Christchurch is a good test site for a blue ocean play as residents were used to all the mod cons but are also pragmatic about making do.

Which comes back to the original question, are food delivery drones a good business proposition or just an advertizing stunt? Where the general public love frothy interest pieces about tacocopters, real robotics companies are looking for more serious business plans. But without generating the public interest and acceptance of drone delivery, then more ambitious projects like creating infrastructure in Africa and internet in the stratosphere are unlikely to get off the ground.

Without TacoCopter, Matternet might not be getting investors. Even Forbes magazine thinks that a ‘moon shot’ like Project Loon is far closer to the real business plan for Google than the far more tangible Google Glass. But then, Google Glass is just opening the doors for next year’s uber generation of really augmented devices. Froth travels on waves.

The report is out – there should be rejoicing up and down robot street! Why? Because one of the tech industry’s most respected analysts is being very bullish about robots as the next technology trend. These are the figures that you wave around on SandHill Rd. This is what VCs and angel investors read. But if you don’t hear anyone cheering yet, it’s because no one is calling it a robot – it’s an “able”.

It’s a “wearable, drivable, flyable, scannable” device. A connected device. Lesson for all robot startups. Don’t call it a robot, call it a connected device. Mary Meeker’s highly anticipated annual report “2013 Internet Trends” was released on May 29. She is also looking at robotics, only she is calling them connected devices or ‘ables’. I would go so far as to add one more ‘able’ to her list; the ‘senseable’. Devices like the Kinect, the Leap and a whole range of new optical and chemical sensors will be adding a lot of value to the ecosystem. They’re made by roboticists, used by robots, and any other connected device in our Internet of Things.

Mary Meeker is a VC and partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers in Silicon Valley. Her background is as a Wall Street securities analyst. She was dubbed ‘queen of the internet’ by Barron Magazine in 1998 and called ‘one of the most influential women in tech’ by Time Magazine. In the 1990s, Meeker became lead analyst for Morgan Stanley’s annual internet report, a ‘bible’ for investors. Meeker was also lead researcher for Google’s IPO. In 2006, Fortune Magazine described Meeker as ”absolutely first rate when it comes to spotting big-picture trends before they come into focus. She gathers massive amounts of data and assembles it into voluminous reports that, while sometimes rambling and overambitious, are stuffed with a million jumping-off points.”

The latest edition of the annual Internet Trends report finds continued robust online growth. There are now 2.4 billion Internet users around the world, and the total continues to grow apace. Mobile usage is expanding rapidly, while the mobile advertising opportunity remains largely untapped. The report reviews the shifting online landscape, which has become more social and content rich, with expanded use of photos, video and audio. Looking ahead, the report finds early signs of growth for wearable computing devices, like glasses, connected wrist bands and watches – and the emergence of connected cars, drones and other new platforms. [2013 Internet Trends]

This is a very broad report covering global growth in the internet and mobile industry, the repurposing or reimagining of our relationships with existing technology, the rise of new computing platforms, right down to global economic growth and immigration patterns. The most interesting section for robotics is Meeker’s naming of the next technology trend. Meeker says that approx every 10 years there is a cycle in the technology platforms.

Scannables is a great figure for robotics, especially if you add my new senseables category, the proliferation of connected sensors from health devices to oceanographic and environmental monitoring. Meeker’s statistics show fourfold growth in the use of codes in China in the last year, delivering 9 million uses per month at a conservative estimate. This contributes significantly to the process of digitizing the world, driven by offline retailers and user generated content. If you add senseables in as well, the speed at which the crowd sourced conversion of the world to digital information readable by robots is well underway.

While there is currently controversy of the accuracy of one widely quoted statistic in Meeker’s report, the general data is solid. Meeker’s claim that “the average smartphone user checks the phone 150 times a day” was taken either from inaccurate or out of context sources, including the mobile industry analyst Tomi Ahonen. Ahonen’s much used statistic was collected informally and applied to non-smart phone users. Analysts are now quick to point out the impossibility of generalizing a useful figure out of an incredibly wide range of phone users.

But for robotics, the simple figures are good. There are 2.5bn internet users today. There are also 5bn phone users with an increasing proportion also becoming internet connected. The smart connected device space is growing. Our world is moving towards ‘ables’; wearables, drivables, flyables, scannables and senseables.

Day One of AWE2013, the Augmented World Expo, finished with Sphero, the robot ball, taking out the first ‘Auggie Award’ for hardware. Sphero, by Orbotix, won the Auggie for their augmented reality game “Sharkey the Beaver”. They’ve also just released a new AR game with zombies “The Rolling Dead”. Using Sphero as a fireball-shooting warrior, you shoot fireballs at zombies spawning out of the ground. You can play anywhere, so the world becomes your video game. And if you don’t have a Sphero – see the end of article for a special offer.

Day Two of AWE2013 opened with Professor Steve Mann from Toronto University giving us a short overview of his incredible history as the pioneer of eyewear, lifelogging and wearable computing. He has also been called a ‘cyborg’ but Mann believes that we all became cyborgs when we started wearing shoes. Mann also raised many issues relating to privacy and lifelogging with a vision of the future in which access to technology empowered people rather than institutions. A chapter on wearable computing at the Interaction Design Foundation expands on Mann’s philosophies. Mann’s talk complemented a special retrospective of wearable computing.

The exhibition, entitled “Thirty Five Years of Head-­Worn Displays and Wearable Computing: A Special Retrospective,” feature the largest collection of personal display devices ever assembled, with 25 unique head-­mounted personal displays spanning more than 35 years. The collection included original artifacts from the world’s first wearable computers and augmented reality vision systems and legacy products developed for the consumer market from Vuzix, Microvision, Reflection Technology, Micro Optical, Virtual IO, Sony, Minolta, myVu, and others. Mann’s influence was evident everywhere.

The exhibition underscores the idea that now is a unique time to explore the evolution of the personal head-worn display and wearable technology category, from a perspective of engineering, functionality, industrial design and usability.  It also highlights the importance of looking into the future to contemplate how these technologies will completely change the way humans interact with the physical world.

Wearable computing has recently been tipped to be the next big technology trend. Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers released Mary Meeker’s annual internet trends report on May 29. Meeker’s comprehensive 117 page report covers everything from immigration and jobs creation to the number of times an average user checks their phone each day. Meeker says that as mobility is becoming ubiquitous, the next major technology trend will include wearable computing.

At AWE2013 Mann’s history of headwear was followed by a panel on the latest eyewear releases. Google Glass was everywhere but so were many others. Mann has just joined forces with meta, who claim to be the only fully augmented reality glasses. The meta kickstarter is already well oversubscribed with 9 days to go. Where Glass only provide a small information screen, meta are going for a Minority Report interleaving of real and virtual objects. Occulus Rift would also have been here but for the tragic death of one of the cofounders a few days ago.

Some of the other eyewear companies represented were Epson, who’s Moveria is proving very useful for industrial instruction and safety, shop or supermarket restocking and inflight entertainment. LASTER is a French company who are just about to release their new product, the Eyephone. Recon Instruments were showing off the new Jet sunglasses, aimed primarily at sports enthusiasts. Optinvent also had the stylish lightweight ORA with a transparent display. And Glassup is an Italian company who are preselling their $299 euro stylish sunglasses for those who want geek chic with their constant connectivity.

Another newcomer is Santa Cruz company, Seebright. Their Spark is a developer-friendly, open platform for augmented reality applications, leveraging the smartphone, Apple only at the moment. Applications for the platform can be developed with established tools and technologies including HTML5, Unity, and native phone code. This new AR headset works with a variety of existing peripherals ranging from low-energy bluetooth heart rate monitors to integration with depth-sensing cameras and gaming peripherals via wifi.

Finally it was great to see Innovega’s IOptik, Best Invention of 2012 according to PopSci. IOptik combines a contact lens as the display with sunglasses as the projector, processor and transmitter/receiver. Innovega recently received DARPA funding and will have the first single eye displays ready to go by September 2013. Also impressive was Fraunhofer’s OLED technologies, combining cameras and projection at incredibly miniature scale and on flexible materials. The bidirectional OLED microdisplay and the OLED-ON-CMOS opto sensor technologies will enable previously impossible small smart sensors and displays.

One of the takeaways from AWE2013 is that this hardware is going to do far more than add visual gimmickry but is reshaping the forms of new 3d user interface for the whole augmented web. The augmented web is well described in Rob Manson’s presentation deck, “Augmented Reality is just a feature!”. Day Two of AWE  finishes with 3Gear Systems – a hardware startup – winning the overall “Best AR startup” pitch.

For a $99 Sphero until June 16 go to MySphero.com and use the discount code “robotlaunch99″ if required.

Augmented reality and virtual reality have been overhyped and underdelivering for years but there are many indications that things are changing. It’s not just that Google Glass has been on the streets for a year now. Well, a select few have had Google Glass for a year already and the cut down consumer version is predicted for 2013/2014. There are also about 10 other versions on display here. I’m at the Augmented World Expo in Santa Clara with 1000+ AR professionals from 30+ countries, seeing 100+ demos and hearing 110 speakers discuss what is happening for augmented humans in the augmented world.

So while this is important to us all personally and socially, this overlaps with robotics in several ways. Robotics research, particularly computer vision, underpins a lot of AR progress to date, especially as we transition from using markers to keypoints or natural markers. But it’s really all about the numbers. In the same way that Kinect is an affordable consumer off the shelf (COTS) product which impacts far more than just the gaming community. Gaming, entertainment, retail and AR are all contributing to the digitization of the physical world. Every speaker shared big numbers on AR uptake that parallel the uptake of computers or the internet moving into early majority stage, beyond early adopters.

This on its own is important for robotics, but can also be seen in conjunction with the potential for robotics to be incorporated as a mechanism in the multitude of new devices and displays. As we create larger and more varied interactive environments, we will increasingly require these environments to move with us, to sense and respond. As we become used to new interfaces with our devices, we will develop more object to object grammars. I find the ability of AR to imbue dumb objects with smarts fascinating, this goes beyond visual trickery and allows us to turn any object into something that has a digital or control relationship with any other object or machine.

A clear message from every speaker was a maturation of AR away from adding visual trickery and towards augmented perception, or providing a data visualization tool for our increasingly digitized quantified lives. This more subtle AR explores the layers of information we already have in the real world and allows for a more ambient or intuitive interface. One example is a startup demoing in the hardware alley, Lightup.io.

LightUp is both a real electronics kit, using magnetic snap together construction, and an app that shows you the flow of electrons when your circuit is working and what’s wrong if your circuit isn’t working. These guys didn’t even think they were AR, they just used tools at hand to build a good teaching experience and are demoing because they’re halfway through their Kickstarter campaign and want exposure. LightUp are Haxlr8r startup accelerator veterans and have put a lot of customer testing into creating a great educational electronics product. I’ve often wished that I could see the electricity. It will be interesting to see their next iteration which may be more robotic.

The Day One keynote speakers opened with Bruce Sterling, science fiction writer and AR visionary. Sterling shared his awe for a world in which our reality was 4 billion tweets a day and the economic colussi were tech companies. He said that people always asked him if it was the dawn of AR yet. “It’s not the dawn of AR, it’s 10.45 am on what’s turning out to be a hot and turbulent summers day.”

Sterling said that we’re on the brink of breakthroughs that will make the last 5 years of AR look like SIGGRAPH in the 80s. Most people I talked to were saying variations of “Some very big companies are about to come out with… I can’t say more but I’ve seen the product roadmap.”

Bruce also gave a hat tip to Gang Huang’s lensless compressive camera from Bell Labs, the launch of Processing 2.0, the launch of Intel Capital’s $100 million perceptual computing fund, and the teaser for Intel’s ‘answer to Kinect and Leap’, not one but two 3D depth cameras.

Tomi Ahonen, mobile industry analyst, shared some numbers on AR uptake in comparison to mobile and is bullishly predicting 1 billion users by 2020. He points out that we’re only just accepting that mobile is no longer a subset of telecommunications or internet but a media and industry of its own. That mobile was not commercialized until 1998 and yet in 2012 there were 7 billion mobile phone accounts, 2.5 billion consumers of paid mobile media.

in 2001, 3 years from launch, mobile had 10 million paid consumers. AR is 3 years from first commercialization and now also has approx 10 million paying consumers. iButterfly in Hong Kong has 7% of smartphone users and is expanding to Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines. In the Netherlands, 14% of phone users have downloaded Layar. With three years of data in hand, Ahonen is confident that AR is on track to be twice the size of combined free and paid newspaper circulation with 1 billion users by 2020.

There was an interesting presentation on augmented perception as giving us super powers from Avi Bar-Zeev, followed by Amber Case calling us all cyborgs already. Case has done a lot of interesting work in geolocation and AR, which she sees as a natural partner to the quantified self or ‘big mother’ movement. Case is looking for technology that is improving our lives while getting out of our way. Being invisible.

Ben Cerveny challenged our understanding of space from an ontological level downwards and described seeing a comparative return to narrative based interactions as opposed to graphical ones. Tish Shute identified some other trends; the rise of wearables, crowdfunding creating a ‘new kind of store’ that gives fast feedback on what people want and projects like the Eidos Masks altering human perception.

Mike Kuniavsky of PARC, Natan Linder of MIT Media Lab and Peter Meier of metaio, spoke about form factors in an augmented world. The LuminAR robotic projector from the MIT Media Lab’s fluid interfaces group “reinvents the traditional incandescent bulb and desk lamp, evolving them into a new category of robotic, digital information devices. The LuminAR Bulb combines a Pico-projector, camera, and wireless computer in a compact form factor. This self-contained system enables users with just-in-time projected information and a gestural user interface, and it can be screwed into standard light fixtures everywhere. The LuminAR Lamp is an articulated robotic arm, designed to interface with the LuminAR Bulb. Both LuminAR form factors dynamically augment their environments with media and information, while seamlessly connecting with laptops, mobile phones, and other electronic devices.”

Will Wright, creator of the Sims and now Stupid Fun Club, spoke about how much data is coming in through our senses, yet how little we make use of. He theorizes that intelligence is a filtering function and that maybe what we want out of augmented reality is really more of a ‘decimated reality’. Wright is looking for AR that not only creates more layers in our world but that actively filters out unwanted information. He calls it ‘customized reality’. Wright is adamant that AR is not just a better internet browser, but something that has a different perceptual interface and that can and should create emotional interactions, if we choose.

Philip Rosedale, cofounder of Second Life and now founder of highfidelity.io, spoke about how we’ve got the speed and scale problems close to solved. That they’ve got latency down to a point where virtual face to face communication is as natural as physical – atleast for talking and looking. Kissing requires the fastest response. Rosedale gave us the first public demo of highfidelity’s work with Rosedale’s real time head movements superimposed on an avatar. Rosedale’s also thinking a lot about Minecraft and turning the world into small cubes of data.

If this short summary of Day One of AWE2013 leaves you wanting more, there are supplementary videos up on the AugmentedReality.org channel.

It’s impossible to see everything at Maker Faire but I tried. I was exhibiting with my hackerspace Robot Garden and had the pleasure of being both a participant and a spectator. This was the 8th annual Maker Faire and it’s grown from 18,000 attendees to over 165,000, and that’s not counting hundreds of participants ranging from hobbyists and performers to startups to research groups, hackerspaces and supporting companies like Autodesk and TechShop. And yes, there were robots.

Revolution was in the air. Some of the feature speakers were; Chris Anderson, ex Wired editor-in-chief, founder of DIY drones and 3D Robotics and author of “The New Industrial Revolution”, Nolan Bushnell, cofounder Atari and author of “Finding the Next Steve Jobs” and Lee Felsenstein, designer of Osborne 1, the first commercially successful personal computer, founding member of the Homebrew Computer Club and veteran of the 60s free speech counterculture revolution and the 70s/80s personal computing/internet revolution.

Lee Felsenstein pointed out that the maker movement has all the hallmarks of the revolutions he has lived through already, including being visible largely in hindsight, being a movement with mass uptake in many small particulars, eventually leading to wholescale social change. Chris Anderson situates the many small particulars in all the materials, manufacturing and funding changes available today, which lead to increasingly low barriers to entry into a creative economy. The importance of creativity was echoed by Nolan Bushnall who said, “If you want to be creative, read science fiction. As history.” Bushnall offered other tips such as play games, keep your workplace crazy, have a lot of different jobs, feed your brain, and say no to no sayers. Bushnall looked into a future of 3d printing, nanotechnology and robotics and the complete disruption of education within 5 years.

Robotics at the Faire

I noticed that there were more drones this year at Maker Faire with a Drone Games arena in the Expo Hall. OpenROV had a swimming pool at the back (but wasn’t the only submarine or UAV about!) There were blimps as well, with space represented by Ardusat, Nanosatisfi, NASA and the CubeSat initiative. There were several budding robotics startups like Barobo, who are on to their 3rd iteration of modular robots and just launched a kickstarter campaign for their new Linkbots.

While the Linkbot is easy to use straight out of the box and suits any ages, it’s got a lot of features that will appeal to hardcore hackers. The Linkbot has two rotating hubs with absolute encoding, an accelerometer, buzzer, multicolor LED, and is ZigBee-capable wireless with a 100m line-of-sight range. The Linkbot is Arduino compatible and a breakout board allows users to connect all sorts of sensors such as range finders, LEDs, or thermostats. Plus you can 3D print and mount any sort of arm or wheel or connector to the 3 attachment plates on each Linkbot.

EZ-Robot is another fun educational robotics product that I’ve been following for a couple of years and I’ve watched them grow from 1 person with prototype at Maker Faire 2011 to a polished 8 person organization with Dagu as their distribution chain.

Fellow Robotics is a relative newcomer but I’m going to be following Fellow closely. At first glance they appear to be a double for Double Robotics, however the team were keen to explain that their focus is on creating a multi sensor capable platform with native web browser support. Look out for a Fellow Robotics crowdfunding campaign soon, but as a result of feedback received during Maker Faire, they may have pivoted from selling their robot package to simply selling their controller board.

There were a lot of interesting sensors and chips, some new but it’s great to see just how creative people can get with comparatively simple components. Another great robotics announcement was the launch of Massimo Banzi’s Arduino Robot. For around $275, the official Arduino Robot will be available from June.

The robot has two processors, one on each of its two boards. The Motor Board controls the motors, and the Control Board reads sensors and decides how to operate. Each of the boards is a full Arduino board programmable using the Arduino IDE, based on the ATmega32u4 (datasheet). The Robot has many of its pins mapped to on-board sensors and actuators. Both processors have built-in USB communication, eliminating the need for a secondary processor. This allows the Robot to appear to a connected computer as a virtual (CDC) serial / COM port. The Arduino Robot is the result of an international collaboration aiming to make science fun, and is completely open source.

More cool tech

There were 3D printers everywhere but OmNom Project (at Robot Garden) launched the world’s first functioning 3D plastic recycler filament maker. Printrbot launched the Simple, a 3D printer kit for less than $300. Printrbot was one of the first crowdfunded 3d printer success stories and in only a year, Brooke Drumm has gone from being ‘just a guy in a garage’ to a million dollar business with 5 or 6 employees.

Shopbot also launched Handibot, the first portable CNC machine, at Maker Faire. Handibot, or something similar, is going to become THE tool at every construction site, and in most garage workshops. Handibot exemplifies the new ‘smart digital power tool’ class of devices which will soon become the norm. With one touch of a button, you can download specs for your job, into your device and get perfect results.

Another smart digital power tool, the Othermill, comes from Saul Griffith’s robotics lab, Otherlab in San Francisco. The Othermill is a small CNC machine aimed at creating custom circuitry. There’s also a kickstarter for the Othermill which is already 200% oversubscribed with 13 days still to run.

There were also laser cutters and Sugru and so so much more! but the how things are put together are just as big a feature of Maker Faire as the what.

Robotics Art & Education

Flaming Lotus Girls, Christian Ristow, Nemo Gould, Mark Setrakian. Fighting robots, flaming robots, shaking robots, swimming robots, sensing robots, biological robots, walking robots, talking robots. I’m posting a separate piece on Mark Setrakian and the making of Robot Combat League and also enjoyed the talk by biological artist, Alan Macy, who was responsible for the Reincarnation Lounge Chairs and Vivisection project.

As well as running a biomedical company, Macy is a technical artist, specializing in the creation of interactive sculpture and installation environments. Presently, Macy is working in the areas of magnetic resonance imaging, virtual reality, multichannel wireless physiological monitoring and smart textiles.

I’m setting up at Maker Faire with Robot Garden (a new robotics hackerspace and accelerator) and hope you’ll all come see Robot Garden @ iGate in Booth #2675 in Expo Hall. We might not be able to report back cause we’re giving presentations and having a booth and trying to look around ourselves but this is an event full of fantastic things. Not only are there some great new fab tools like ShopBot’s new Handibot and Otherfab’s newOthermill and Robot Garden’s own 3d plastic recycler OmNom, but there are robots everywhere!

Some of the great robots & roboticists to see:

• New Arduino robot
• Carol Reiley – Tinkerbelle Labs
• DJ Sures – EZ-Robot
• Christian Ristow – robot artist 
• Drone Games
• Drone Dudes – Octocopter
• Chris Anderson – 3D Robotics
• Homebrew Robotics Club
• inside Robot Combat League
• Electric Vehicle Entrepreneurs
• Stanley Jr
• Dave Shinsel – 80lb humanoid
• NorCal Mars Rover
• Erin Kennedy – Robogrrl’s Creatures
• David Lang & Eric Stackpole – Open ROV
• Open Source Hardware Foundation
• BeatBots
• Arcbotics
• MATE underwater robots
• Modular tread robot
• Gertie the jumping robot
• The Electric Giraffe
• Nano Quadcopters
• Human size robot showdown
• Hand of Man
• Roy
• Walking Pod
• Bartendro
• Aeroquad – open source project
• Creepy Crawly Robots
• Manylabs
• Fred the Dalek
• Octopussy

At this point, I have to stop! But there are still more robots and heaps more interesting circuit, arduino, sensing, computing, wearable, combustible, fungible, tangible, disgustible, combatable, and just totally creative things here.

New accelerators are opening and existing programs are expanding. It’s an exciting time to be a robotics or hardware startup. In my next post I’ll talk about some of the sorts of startups that investors are showing interest in, but briefly, unless you are in the industrial space: Don’t call it a robot. Call it a connected device.

AlphaLab Gear has just opened applications for their first intake in October. Based in Pittsburgh, it’s the hardware and robotics extension of Innovation Works program. They are interested in your ‘crazy’ ideas and also in sensor or component technology. But then, who isn’t!

Applications for Bolt‘s first intake close in 6 days. They’re looking for teams with world changing ideas, less than 2 years development time, a technically leaning team of founders, connected devices and robotics. Bolt hopes you’ve raised money already.. but not too much. With their partnership with Dragon Innovation and a top class team of mentors, Bolt is in a good position to get you to market.

Just announced is PCH International‘s accelerator. Based in San Francisco but also offering a Shenzhen experience, PCH International will be drawing on their experience bringing many of the world’s major brand products to market.

Haxlr8r is another accelerator with a good track record and they are expanding their program to a twice yearly. Haxlr8r offers seed funding ($25,000), office space, mentorship and selects startups to work with twice a year and has a dual location (San Francisco and Shenzhen). Its first batch ran from March to June 2012 and has been well received.

Lemnos Labs is another accelerator with a well developed and expanding program. Lemnos is now taking applications all year round, although you will also have to be able to work in San Francisco. They’re looking for technically minded founders and aren’t afraid of industrial robotics.

If you’re in New York, the Zahn Center is the place to be. It’s a well funded new hardware accelerator, fab lab and cowork space run by medical roboticist Hatham Elhawary.

Silicon Valley Robotics will be also be announcing something soon. And of course there are now several robotics focussed funds, Grishin Robotics, newer kids on the block Genesis Angels, and European focussed Robolution Capital. There may be some more funds announced soon. But what is also a great opportunity are the corporate accelerators, funds and competitions.

I’ve mentioned Samsung’s accelerator and seed/venture fund before and now GE have partnered with Quirky to take a ‘hack a connected device’ tour around the country. And my current favorite competition is the International Hardware Startup Competition in conjunction with the Augmented World Expo in Santa Clara on June 3rd.

The SF Hardware Startup Meetup is hosting a special International Hardware Startup Meetup and International Hardware Start-upCompetition sponsored by PCH International, Upverter, and AugmentedReality.org.

PCH International and Upverter will be offering in-kind prizes to the best “connected” hardware startup.  Brady Forrest, PCH International, will announce the winners (judges favorite) & present the award at the “Auggies” award ceremony on June 4th at the Augmented World Expo.

The Hardware Startup Meetup and Competition are focused on connected hardware and is co-located with Augmented World Expoon June 3rd at 2pm at the Santa Clara Convention Center, 5001 Great America Pkwy, Santa Clara, CA 95054. The Expo runs from June 3rd to 5th and covers all things Augmented Reality, from heads-up displays, to novel UX designs, education, automotive, etc. It’ll be like living in the future – today!

New funding sources for robotics seem to be popping up everywhere. Today’s launch of Genesis Angels, the new $100 million VC fund, which is based in Israel but operating globally, is hot on the heels of the EC announcing that the next tranche of robotics investment is likely to be more than €600M ($774M).

At RoboBusiness Europe, Libor Kral, Head of the DG Connect Robotics Unit in the European Commission, described this as the largest civilian investment in robotics R&D in the world, albeit closely matched by Korea. Kral added that not only was the EC budget for robotics increasing in the Horizon 2020 period (2014-2020) but that the new PPP or Private-Public Partnership program would contribute a hefty 70% plus 100% of overhead of each partnership.

There are rumours of new funds launching in Hong Kong, China and India. With Genesis Angels based out of Israel and Grishin Robotics originally based in Russia, you have to ask what is the US doing. As defence funding for robotics slows, it seems that the US is relying on partnerships, providing the ‘talent’ and pool that everyone else wants to play in. Risky strategy if you can’t keep IP or ‘talent’ and don’t maintain a manufacturing infrastructure.

Genesis Angel’s announcement comes shortly after another Israel/US partnership, the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology is partnering with Cornell in creating a graduate school for applied science and engineering (and entrepreneurship) in New York City. Already getting underway in temporary headquarters (at Google?) in Chelsea, the Institute will open on Roosevelt Island in 2017. The goal is to create another startup ecosystem, like Stanford/Silicon Valley and Route 128/MIT, where academics and industry can cross pollinate.

The accelerator model is taking many shapes. Grishin Robotics has just invested in Bolt, the Boston based hardware accelerator, and Lemnos Labs in San Francisco is picking up more and more venture backing. Alongside virtual accelerators, ranging from crowdfunging, hackerspaces and Robot Launchpad, which is facilitating advisor, mentor and peer startup acceleration, you have the more traditional incubators in large strategic players.

Companies like Samsung, Qualcomm, Bosch, GE, Intel etc. are more willing to take the long view when it comes to robotics and to invest in a company that may not deliver returns for 4 or 5 years. Of course, you have to have a big vision, that unlocks large revenue areas and that aligns with the company’s existing platforms, whether it’s chips, phones or appliances.

It also helps if you call it “smart connected devices” rather than robotics.

It was another amazing Robot Block Party at the CARS facility in Stanford. More than 30 companies, startups, STEM groups and individuals demonstrated robots ranging from PR2s to tiny brain powered helicopters. The Block Party was sandwiched between the Robotics and Law conference, “We Robot: Getting down to business” at Stanford Law School and the equally impressive Xconomy forum “Robots Remake the Workplace” at SRI International. Many people who came for one event, stayed in the area a day or two longer for more.

We also had a free shuttle running between the Robot Block Party and the Cool Product Expo put on by the Stanford Product Design and Manufacturing Club. They had a wide range of cool hardware products, largely from a crowd funded background, including Double Robotics and Kubi from Revolve Robotics. The shuttle was so popular that we kept it running longer than planned, all the way up to our 6pm network event. Once again Bot&Dolly hosted a great ‘afterparty’ with artisan cocktails, where a lot of networking was done. The weather was on our side this year, making an outdoor evening reception really enjoyable.

This year, National Robotics Week didn’t seem to coincide with spring break and although there were still a lot of children enjoying the demos, the audience as a whole was primarily students and staff from Stanford, robotics professionals from other companies and people generally interested in robotics. All up, we had between 1000-2000 attendees. The job fair part of the event produces some quality introductions and we are continuing it online, after getting feedback that it’s generated some successful hires.

Great article and video (above) by James Temple, SF Chronicle/SFGate

Another great article and pictures by James Martin, CNET

Some more great articles and videos by Martyn Williams, PCWorld (may be more coming!): Block Party and Turtlebots, Block Party and Puzzlebox,

reposted in other sites like: TechHive,

Autodesk Design Night and Block Party story by Patrick Hoge in San Francisco Business Times

Great story with video interviews by Evan Ackerman on Spectrum Automaton

Also see our G+ page and G+ community and Facebook pages for photos

Some early press for Robot Block Party from Cromwell Schubarth of the Silicon Valley Business Journal

And the National Robotics Week media release with our Robot Block Party as a featured event

French Tribune

Arab Emirates

Well, that’s not quite true. According to Rodney Brooks, robotics has too much Steve Wozniak and not enough Steve Jobs. And perhaps that’s where the jobs part of a very full afternoon forum should have ended. Xconomy’s forum “Robots Remake the Workplace” featured a stellar line up of robotics companies, startups and investors who covered a wide range of views about where robotics industries were going. Vivek Wadhwa, VP of Academics and Innovation at Singularity University and Wade Roush, Xconomy Chief Correspondent and moderator of the sessions, tried hard to represent the recent negative view of robotic’s impact on jobs and the economy. But in the end, it was clear that robots vs. jobs was a far less compelling discussion than diving deeper into what sort of robotics businesses are taking shape and what issues they face.

Some of the key points made about robots vs. jobs included the reminder that information technology ie. the computer and spreadsheet, have already ‘taken’ far more jobs than robots will in the next 10 years and that robots vs. jobs was not a debate in other parts of the world, although arguably China will be one of the most affected countries. Curt Carlson, President and CEO of SRI International opened the afternoon by saying that the number of robots is growing faster than the number of people and predicting the emergence of a new smarter manufacturing with ‘zero inventory, zero delay and absolute personalized production’.

Wade Roush framed the debate in US economic terms, will robotics make things worse when the US is in a prolonged period of unemployment? Scholars and media talk about a workplace not ready to change and an education system failing low skilled and low wage workers. Rodney Brooks points to declining number of ‘peak 19yr olds’ in both China and the US and said that factory workers were going to become a scarce resource. Studies that he’s done show that current factory workers do not want their children to follow in their footsteps. Women make up a high percentage of factory workers and that as they age, they’d like less strenuously physical factory work. Brook’s believes that Rethink Robotics is solving these problems with Baxter. Baxter can safely work alongside people and is simple to reprogram. Brook’s keynote address ended with a call to bring tooling back to the US and to improve supply chain dynamism, make quick scale up possible and develop new business models. He believes robotics is on the verge of becoming pervasive and very interesting but there’s still too much Wozniak and not enough Jobs.

“Industrial augmentation not automation” was Aaron Edsinger’s catchphrase talking about turning people into problem solvers not factory workers. Rich Mahoney wants to see robot business models that democratize our access to quality. Aldo Zini echoes Rodney Brooks – we need tool making facilities back in the US – not just for robots but all manufacturing. Zini also said that robotics was going to be successful when it was solving problems. And a robot that solved a problem was not replacing a human and wouldn’t be seen as ‘evil’. Whether it’s stroke therapy, logistics, factory work or agriculture, that robots were going to be introduced in jobs that were dangerous and difficult or that people were unable to do at all.

The next panel suggested that telepresence robots will make it easier to fill jobs but out of the 3 companies, Double Robotics, Revolve Robotics and Romotive, 2 have made their marketplace ‘family presence’ rather than making a workplace play. Wade Roush offered a discount on Xconomy tickets next year if you attend via telepresence. One interesting point made was that in mobile technology everything is ‘design driven’ innovation whereas in robotics most things are still ‘technology driven’.

Chris Anderson provided a lively keynote for the second half of the afternoon, opining that “robots are the peace divident of the smart phone wars.” The smartphone revolution is “the Cambrian explosion of Robotics…If we hit a hard problem, just wait 6 months.” Chris Anderson was the Editor-In-Chief at Wired but is now CEO of 3D robotics, a company that is about to be larger than Wired. “5 yrs ago I was playing Lego with my kids – today it’s a multimillion $ robot business. It’s never been easier to start a hardware company than now.”

For a full list of speakers and perhaps some videos – go to Xconomy.

Happy Robotics Week to everyone!  Thanks to all the organizers, contributers and robot fans around the US. But why stop there? This year’s National Robotics Week has 177 events in all 50 states, DC, Puerto Rico and Mars!

“I’m very pleased to say we have huge participation from NASA JPL and the Curiosity team- so we have Mars!!” says Lisa Freed, National Robotics Week coordinator. “I’ve attached a special greeting for RoboWeek, and below is a link to a video from JPL to inspire kids. It’s all fantastic content, and I hope you will all share it with your networks. Show it at your events, to your kids, everywhere!”  You can also visit National Robotics Week at #roboweek and on facebook.com/roboweek.

The video “Inspiring Students to Build Robots” features Bobak Ferdowsi, Curiosity flight director, also known as ‘mohawk guy’ from the ’7 minutes of terror’ Curiosity descent on to Mars.

In Silicon Valley and the Bay Area of California, we’re looking forward to a full week of activities including the big Robot Block Party on Wednesday April 10. The week has already gotten underway with the FIRST robotics championships, Robot Design Night, and the Drone Games and will continue via the Robotics and Law conference, Robots in the Roses Research Fair, the Robot Block Party and the Xconomy Robots in the Workplace forum, plus even more robot competitions!

The Week culminates in RoboGames on April 20, the world’s largest robot competition. It’s also a very long week but how else could you fit in so many great robot events! Here’s a snapshot of a few of the Silicon Valley/Bay Area events to come.

Silicon Valley Robot Block Party at Stanford April 10

The Robot Block Party will run from 1pm – 6pm at VAIL Stanford, the home of DARPA Grand Challenge winning self driving cars, Stanley and Junior. Robots from a range of companies large to small will be on display or roaming around. More than 33 companies, startups and STEM organizations will be showing off their robots, rovers, rollers, flyers and divers, with AUVSI providing a pool for aquatic robotics. There will also be a job fair from 12 to 1pm where students interested in a job in robotics can ‘speed date’ companies, browse our ‘positions open’ board and lodge their resumes.

Cool Product Expo at Stanford April 10

But wait – more robots! at the Arrillaga Alumni Center from 12:00 PM - 6:00 PM Take the free shuttle over to visit the Cool Product Expo, put on by Stanford Graduate School of Business and the Product Design & Manufacturing Club. See more than 30 of the latest cool products including several great robotics and electronics startups.

Xconomy’s Robots Remake the Workplace at SRI International on Thursday April 11

And more robots! Hear some great speakers at Xconomy’s Robots Remake the Workplace including Chris Anderson, Rich Mahoney, Rodney Brooks, Curt Carlson, Aaron Edsinger, Steve Jurvetson, Vivek Whadwa and more. Special student and startup prices.

CIS conference ‘We Robot: Getting down to business’ at Stanford Law School on April 8-9

And more robots! Hear some more great speakers discuss the immediate commercial prospects of robotics across a wide range of disciplines at “We Robot: Getting down to business”.

Seagull chasing a drone at Engadget Expand SF – this behavior persisted for the whole Fighting Walrus demo!

The first Engadget Expand expo at Fort Mason in San Francisco was a great weekend out with lots of robotics. In fact the striking thing was how much of the event was talking about or demonstrating robotics – even in some of the panels which were ostensibly about something else ie. space exploration, smart devices and arguably even 3D Printing.

Speakers at Engadget’s weekend expo include: Steve Cousins of Willow Garage, Chris Anderson of 3D Robotics, Marc Raibert of Boston Dynamics, Russ Angold of Ekso Bionics, and Catherine Mohr of Intuitive Surgical. The panels are all online at Engadget and linked to below.

There was also a provocative panel on how science fiction shapes technology and vice versa with Daniel H Wilson, John Scalzi, and Veronica Belmont. Some of the companies who are finalists in the Insert Coin competition are robotic too, from the cSpring humanoid robot to the Ziphius aquatic drone. And for those interested in robot business development the pre event poll found that most respondents want a house cleaning robot:

I’ve included a list of some (not all) of the videos in rough order of the event:

Demo of Ekso Bionics

Science Fiction Panel: with Daniel H. Wilson, John Salzi and Veronic Belmont

Future of Technology?

Robopocalypse: with Chris Anderson of 3d robotics

Robopocalypse: with Marc Raibert of Boston Dynamics

Robopocalypse: with Steve Cousins of Willow Garage

Robopocalypse: panel

Marc Raibert backstage

Better Living Through Technology Panel: with Russ Angold of Ekso Bionics and Catherine Mohr of Intuitive Surgical

Insert Coin Winners backstage: with Ziphius aquatic drone

Insert Coin demo: Ziphius aquatic drone

Insert Coin demo: cSpring humanoid robot

There was also a provocative panel on how science fiction shapes technology and vice versa with Daniel H Wilson, John Scalzi, and Veronica Belmont. The demos from Some of the companies who are finalists in the Insert Coin competition are robotic too, from the cSpring humanoid robot to the Ziphius aquatic drone.

A range of Silicon Valley robotics members were featured in a comprehensive Palo Alto Weekly article by Bryce Druzin, including Willow Garage, Neato, Foldimate, RoboteX and research by Salisbury Robotics Lab.

 ”Persistence is at the heart of every successful robotics startup, and a lot of pivoting. So the faster you can move from prototyping into customer development, market research and investor meetings, the more likely you are to find a good product/market fit.”

Tell us about Robot Launchpad, how did it get started and what are its main initiatives?

Robot Launchpad has been a fantastic vehicle for testing a lot of assumptions about startups, robotics and the relevance of current software, web and mobile startup methodologies, including lean startup, for robotics startups. Our goal at the outset was to challenge conventional robotics business development pathways and revitalize investor interest in robotics. We’ve certainly succeeded in being at the focal point for a lot of excitement about robotics and hardware startups generally.

I moved to the US from Australia 2 years ago, with my partner who is running a technology accelerator in Silicon Valley. Although both of us have research backgrounds in robotics, he moved into software and my background is in human robot interaction in the broadest sense, in the transfer points between technology and society. Right now Silicon Valley is the epicenter of rapid change both technological and in the processes of business, a wave of change that Chris Anderson calls ‘the new industrial revolution’.

The difference between the very vibrant Silicon Valley/San Francisco culture and what I was seeing of the robotics community as I travelled to conferences was striking. A group of us, including Erin Rapacki (IPI) and Ahmed Siddiqui (ex Startup Weekend) put on a number of events in 2012 which crossed the boundaries. We have a robotic track at Mega Startup Weekend at Microsoft, and at Google IOIO afterhack. We held a robotics mini conference at the blackbox.vc accelerator and generally got a lot of publicity for the possibilities of radicalizing robotics business by using lean startup methodologies, rapid prototyping, early customer development, leveraging COTS and crowdfunding, open source communities etc.

We certainly weren’t the only ones thinking along these lines, as evidenced by the rash of highly publicized consumer robot startups like Double Robotics, Sphero, Romotive, Botiful and more generally the amazing ability of some hardware startups to go from zero to 60 with very little investment like Lit Motors, Lark, Pebble etc. When you see an Internet of Things company like Ninja Blocks pitch successfully to Dave McClure of 500 startups – notoriously the most internet facing of investors – you can see people starting to sit up and look seriously at hardware investments. Just recently Y Combinator released a ‘welcome letter’ to all hardware startups.

But as well as presenting a strong message of support for robotics and hardware to the broader investment community, I think that one of our main initiatives has been  bringing the message back to the robotics community with case studies & examples. I started a robot startup interview series, which appears on Robohub, the global robotics news & views site, where we get to drill a little bit deeper into the successes and failures of some companies who have led the way for smaller startups in the service and consumer space. There’s obviously a demand for this because the Automaton blog has just launched a ‘startup’ focus too.

You are gathering a lot of information on Robot startups.  Can you tell us some of the things you are learning about the processes to a successful robot startup?

Persistence is at the heart of every successful robotics startup, and a lot of pivoting. So the faster you can move from prototyping into customer development, market research and investor meetings, the more likely you are to find a good product/market fit. You need to be very persuasive about your ability to successfully penetrate a small niche, rather than making broad claims. Investors can make that leap themselves, but they are skeptical about any startup’s ability to execute without a proven track record.

Assembling a team of advisors and core roles is very helpful for proving your ability to execute. If you can’t persuade someone to come on as an advisor, then you really don’t have anything yet. I’m talking about a different startup process to that of a person or company who is simply solving a technical problem, patenting it and sitting back. They already have product/market fit.

I’m excited about the whole range of potential robotics and hardware startups out there which involve an imaginative use of technologies that already exist. It’s about new business models and that’s why it’s so important to get out of the door and test your assumptions. It’s not necessary to have a working product because you need to make a product that will work for your customers and until you’ve found your customers, you can’t seriously prototype.

Of course, this is even easier if you take an existing robot and repurpose it for a new market. I’m expecting to see a lot of projects like this soon, for example, a telepresence fitness trainer robot, franchising an existing platform.

What are some of the projects that you are working on at the current time?

Robot Launchpad has done a lot of pivoting based on last year’s experience. While starting a robotics investment accelerator fund was a particularly appealing direction, it’s not really necessary. There are an increasing number of accelerators with a focus or specialty in hardware from Grishin Robotics, Robolution Capital, Lemnos Labs, Haxlr8tr, to PCH International, Seeed Studios, Product Design Group, Robot Shop, to investors like YCombinator, The Foundry Group, even Andreessen Horowitz inspite of their oft stated belief that software is everything.

I’ve already mentioned the Robot Launchpad series of robot startup interviews but we’re also still registering startups and making connections for them. In the process, we’re compiling some common threads about issues faced by robotics startups and we’re expanding our pool of experts who provide commentary and advice.

Are there some up and coming projects that you can talk about?

My main initiative this year has been founding Robot Garden, a robotics focussed hacker or maker space here in California. It’s the logical extension of everything we’ve been learning. We have high level strategic partners, in the iGate Innovation Hub, Innovation Trivalley and the Livermore Valley Open Campus initiative, who are looking for ‘on the ground’ presence and through Robot Launchpad we have a community who are already passionate about robotics as the gateway for STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, math) and lifelong learning across all technology subjects.

It also doesn’t hurt that we’re located in the Trivalley, an area with the highest PhD per capita ratio in the entire US, both Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Sandia are based here and yet it’s an area that is 1 hour away from every other hackerspace or Techshop.

Robot Garden is where the maker revolution meets MIT’s fablab concept. We believe that hackerspaces or community workshops are the public library of 21st century. The tools, or the books, are just the beginning of a community engagement that leads to incredible invention and entrepreneurship.

Where in its evolution do you think the robotics industry is at this time?

Clearly the robotics industry is seeing unprecedented growth and potential at the moment. The industry in general is expanding from an industry and service professional base towards lower cost personal service and consumer robotics. This rapid growth is going to continue to pick up speed. The mobile phone and internet expansion guarantees that robotics will grow fast, cheap and out of control. The downside is that in many ways robotics is going to just disappear. Everything will use robotics technologies and there is no one industry or application that is a ‘robot’.

Where do you see the industry going in the next 5 to 10 years?

The robotics industry as we know it is about to disappear. It’s going to become pervasive. In 5 or 10 years time, robotics technology will be in everything. The demand for roboticists, or people with the skills to work across engineering/compsci is going to skyrocket. At the same time, we won’t call most robotic devices or appliances ‘robots’. They will simply become ‘autonomous’, ‘smart’, ‘driverless’ or ‘unmanned’. I believe that one last category of ‘robots’ will come to ‘life’ in 5 to 10 years and that is the social household robot. If it can talk to us like it cares, we won’t mind if it only picks up socks, or makes coffee and lets the cat out.

About Andra Keay

Andra Keay is a robot startup evangelist, Founder of Robot Launchpad, Managing Director of Silicon Valley Robotics and CoFounder of Robot Garden, a new robotics hackerspace. She obtained her MA in Human-Robot Culture/Cultural Theory at the University of Sydney, Australia in 2011, building on a background as a robot hobbyist, STEM educator, computer network administrator, software developer, web site designer and film-maker. She graduated as an ABC technical operations trainee in 1986 and obtained a BA in Communication from the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS) Australia, in 1998. Andra has been running science, computing and robotics workshops since 1995, with a focus on empowering people to adapt to changing technology. She is also children’s robotic team coach. Since moving to Silicon Valley in 2011, Andra has founded Robot Launchpad, an early stage accelerator for robot startups, is the inaugural Managing Director for Silicon Valley Robotics, an emerging robotics cluster and has also cofounded Robot Garden, a space for makers and hackers with an interest in robotics.

Join robotics companies like Anybots, Double Robotics, 9th Sense, Orbotix and heaps of other hardware startups in the Demo Pit at Launch SF March 4-6

Demo at California Academy of Sciences Nightlife on Thursday March 7th 6-10pm. Join robots from Beatbots to BotnDolly and presentations from Robogames and Silicon Valley Robotics at this popular annual showcase. There will be cocktails and dancing! YOU MUST SIGN UP FOR NIGHTLIFE BY FRIDAY MARCH 1

Engadget’s Expand, in SF March 16-17, is still looking for early stage hardware companies to join the Insert Coin competition plus they have a stellar line up of speakers from the robotics world.

We’re already taking names for the Robot Block Party @ Stanford on April 10th. Space is limited so sign up now! Reach thousands of people in person or in media, take advantage of our job fair and enjoy the network event afterwards. SIGN UP FOR ROBOT BLOCK PARTY

In health tech? The 2nd Health Technology Forum Innovation Conference at UCSF on April 19 wants to feature emerging technologies particularly robotics, even if you aren’t yet in the health domain but thinking about it. Great opportunity to meet CMOs. SIGN UP TO DEMO AT HEALTH TECH

Bolt, Ben Einstein’s hardware and robotics accelerator in Boston, today announced the close of their first funding round and the opening of the first round of applications for 2013 hardware startups. Bolt has a 4000 sq ft high end prototyping shop under their offices in the Downtown Crossing district and plans to open the doors in May.

Strategic investors Logitech, Autodesk and Grishin Robotics join with angel investors including Semyon Dukach, Mick Mountz, Eran Egozy, Brad Feld, and Bruce Sachs to raise $3.5 million in funding. Xconomy reports that a “regulatory filing suggests Bolt is planning to raise a little less than $5 million in total, which should let it operate for a couple of years.”

Bolt exists to help early-stage hardware companies get their products to market. Our core program offers cash, mentorship, shop equipment, professional engineering staff, financing and manufacturing relationships to 10 startup companies every 6 months. But we’re happy to provide advice to any hardware startup, even ones that don’t apply to our program. You can send a note asking for help with a specific product at any time to: help (at) buildatbolt (dot) com. [bolt.io]

As Ben Einstein points out, Bolt is providing something similar to Lemnos Labs in San Francisco, or Haxlr8r in China, or Techshops anywhere, and he believes that hardware experience is critical to nurturing hardware startups. It’s something that typical accelerators – like Y Combinator – can’t provide.

The core team at Bolt has a good mix of skills and experience in hardware startups. Ben Einstein is a product designer and entrepreneur who previously ran Brainstream Design and he says he’s most comfortable with a face full of metal filings. Axel Bichara is a venture capital veteran with a mechanical engineering background. Axel was a partner at Atlas Venture, cofounder of Premise (acquired by Computervision) and lead investor in SolidWorks (acquired by Dassault Systemes). Scott Miller was VP of Engineering at iRobot, and has built 3M units of robots like Roomba. Scott is also the founder and CEO of Dragon Innovation which has overseen the far-east manufacturing of products like Pebble, Zeo, and Orbotix.

Bolt also provides access to a stellar array of mentors with experience specific to robotics and hardware, such as Mick Mountz (Kiva) and Brad Feld (Foundry Group). Projects’ founders will receive seed capital, access to office and prototyping facilities, and extensive support from a full-time engineering/design staff and a wide array of hardware-centric mentors. Bolt’s program is focused on key aspects of ideation and development of any successful mass-market hardware products, including manufacturing and commercialization.

I suspect that after this first application round, Bolt may find it easier to take applications on a rolling basis rather than a tranche. But all said, this is fantastic news for robot startups. If only it wasn’t in Boston. Well, actually, this is why we’re building Robot Garden here in CA!

[This article also appeared on Robohub and Robot Garden 2/20/2013]

We all know that robots are the gateway to STEM education, so what’s not to love about getting 4 robots in a box, complete with lessons preloaded on a tablet. As both the US and UK undergo core curricula changes to better reflect the changing workforce and education needs, the market potential for robotics in education grows. As well as workng in the consumer and cloud robotics space, Elad Inbar is the CEO of RobotsLab, a new educational robotics company, who launched their “BOX” of robots today at the TCEA education convention in Austin TX.

The BOX contains 4 robots; AR.Drone, Sphero, Armbot and Mobot; that demonstrate core concepts in algebra, physics, geometry, trigonometry and calculus. The BOX also contains accessories and a tablet preloaded with 50 lessons, all thoroughly tested by an expert teacher panel in classrooms prior to the launch.

“You can open the box, turn-on the preloaded tablet and within minutes explain quadratic equations with a Quadcopter” explains Prof. Peter Stone, UT Austin. “You don’t need to be experienced with robotics or have a degree in computer science, just an enthusiasm for your subject area.”

I have seen quite a few robot startups entering trying to enter the education sector recently, but few have the strategies or resources to tackle the incumbents, like Lego. One problem for the sector is the lack of market data specific to robotics. Robotics statistics agencies like IFR don’t seem to offer useful figures specific to this vertical and market leaders in the education space don’t share their data. New and emerging companies face an uphill battle gaining initial investors as they move from the research and prototype stage (usually supported by universities) into the commercialization stage. At the same time, they have to learn how to crack the tough customer nut that is the education system. Still if robotics can sell into defence and health, then education is achievable. And presumably, once you’ve broken into the market, you gain a lot of traction as an incumbent.

I interviewed Elad Inbar about robot startups entering the education sector:

[Elad Inbar] “The IFR (International Federation of Robotics) does not provide data about this market in this level of granularity and most of the companies don’t really share data about their sales, it is hard to figure out the actual value. Based on my experience in the educational robotics market in the past 4 years and our understanding of the market, I can say that the market (hardware sales – including robotic kits from DIY, VEX and LEGO, over to all kinds of robotic arms and similar robots and all the way to advanced robots for research such as NAO, Q.bo and DARwIn) is roughly $50-60 million\year. If you include services such as training, courses, development, after hour classes, etc. then the number will go up to roughly $150-200\year.

To me, the market has not yet reached even 10% of its potential, as educational robotics are mainly focused on computer science, robotics, artificial intelligence and such. There are many other niches in the education that can definitely benefit from robotics – such as our product that teaches Algebra, Geometry and science.”

[Elad Inbar] “We want to bring this unique experience to every school, we crafted state-of-the-art lessons that teachers and students love, and created an aggressive pricing and warranty, ensuring that every school will be able to get this revolutionary teaching-aid tool.”

Samsung Electronics president, Young Sohn, explained that these diverse strategies represented Samsung’s commitment to looking further ahead than 3-5 years, to commercializing innovative research and connecting with entrepreneurs at every level. Samsung is also proud of their proven ability to invest in hardware and components, in part because they control their own supply chain.

Through their Innovation Fellows and partnerships with research groups, Samsung hope to focus on disruptive platforms; the Internet of Everything; Mobile Health; Computer Human Interface; Cloud and Data Center Architecture; and Mobile Privacy. They’d also like to hear from you if you are building something that will play nicely with their new ultra thin flexible display.

Because Samsung is focussing on disruptive technology, its new Innovation Center will be headquartered at Sand Hill Road in Silicon Valley, and will be led by Samsung Electronics president and chief strategy officer Young Sohn. “Being in Silicon Valley is critical because this is the epicenter of disruptive innovation,” Sohn said.

“By 2020, Sohn said, Samsung expects there to be 120 billion connected devices around the world. And the company wants to connect all of those devices, hopefully capturing an ever-larger portion of the electronics market in the process. Samsung hopes to double its revenue between now and 2020 and grow to a $400 billion company by that time. With the growing number of devices, Samsung sees the need for new technologies around cloud infrastructure, mobile privacy, Internet of Things, and other related topics.” [http://techcrunch.com/2013/02/04/samsung-strategy-and-innovation-center/]

Samsung’s Venture Americas Fund has already invested $160 million in 2012 in 20 deals, and over the years has seen more than 60 exits, with 47 IPOs and 16 acquisitions. The fund increase to $1 billion shows a strong commitment to hardware and component companies. Alongside the Ventures Fund, the Innovation Fellows and the Catalyst Seed Fund, Samsung are launching an entrepreneur challenge later this year. Aimed at identifying and nurturing artists and engineers, with $10 million in seed funding and access to Samsung’s R&D, Innovation Fellows and SSIC, the SamsungCreate Challenge is a must.

In my opinion, the International Consumer Electronics Show used robots gratuitously, out of context and without benefit to robotics companies. It’s a category problem more than anything else and is repeated across consumer electronics, media and popular culture. CNET used robots in the showreel for the “post mobile future of technology” panel, yet didn’t discuss automation or artificial intelligence. CES used robots in their general showreel, playing in all the shuttle buses and PR for CES2013, and yet buried the “robot tech zone” at the back of beyond. It would have been good to see the poster robot, Amp, in production or in person. Also, there were far more robots out of the robot zone than inside it. Robotics has jumped the shark. Consumer robotics is alive and well, but it doesn’t resemble the PR.

We may have reached a tipping point where having a robot zone does everyone a disservice. Outside of a couple of very well known and popular robots, like Paro and Pleo, the robot zone was primarily filled with component company booths. Most robot companies, like iRobot, were scattered across the entire show, staying closer to their vertical areas. Or they were in the new innovation and startup areas. And you couldn’t rely on the CES categories if you wanted to find a robotics company somewhere else.

The CES 2013 official guide lists only 59 robot companies (and they are scattered across the whole convention area). It’s immediately obvious that major companies are missing from the list. iRobot, Parrot and Moneual all had “ROBOT” proudly posted all over their displays and were doing thriving business in the home appliance areas. However, they weren’t listed as robot companies.

Parrot and Moneual are going head to head in the internet of things with their new smart pot plant sensors. And although they are reaching into other areas of automation and robotics, Moneaul in particular was milking the packaging device of calling everything a “robot”, with their robot vacuum, mop and air purifier.

There were also some great robotics companies in the Eureka Tech Zone with Modular Robotics, RoadNarrows, Interbots and Robotex, to name just a few. Modular Robotics new Cubelets kit is both cheaper and better. They’ve added a lego conversion, so that you can attach lego to your Cubelets and go wild building. They’ve also added a bluetooth cube and made them hackable. Interbots had their new soft touchable and expressive robot toy aimed at children with autism spectrum disorder. RoadNarrows was displaying a nice lightweight 3D printed 5 DOF robot arm and 3D vision system, which highlights the changes that digital manufacturing processes are making in robotics. And Robotex were selling a light weight consumer version of their security robotic platform. “Avatar” is ios and android compatible, via bluetooth and is open source. Avatar also comes from a company that knows how to build reliable and robust robots and is selling for only $299.

There is also plenty of robotics hidden in the automotive sections. (Most of the buzz I heard at CES was about driverless vehicles and assistive technologies.) But it’s clear that car companies don’t always see much benefit in identifying as a ‘robotic’ technology.

There’s the problem. What is the benefit to a robotics company in being categorized as ‘robot’ when your market may be home automation or health care?

And it was sad not to see Amp in ‘person’. It sure looked like Amp was the poster robot for CES and yet production has been on hold since the recession hit.

Chris Anderson, CEO of 3D Robotics, former Editor-in-Chief of WIRED and author of The Long Tail, Free and the newly published Makers, speaks about the new industrial revolution, how easy it is these days to start a hardware company and how he’s putting it into practice with 3D Robotics. (question at 36 mins)

Robotics is still the picture rather than the story at International CES, the largest innovation and consumer electronics display in the world. When CNET’s Next Big Thing panel discussed “What is the post mobile future?” the showreel used pictures of robots to illustrate themes of connectivity, internet of things, and sensor data networks. All connected to smart devices. Cisco predicted that there’d be 1 trillion connected devices in the world in 2013.The post mobile future is actually more of a ‘plus mobile’ future.

Although there is a small robotics area at CES, the majority of robotics companies are spread across the entire show, depending on the market. The driverless cars, or assistive automotive technologies were creating a lot of buzz in the first few days and the smart money is on  the home and yard care robots, rather than the toys or telepresence robots, to make the strongest impression on the consumer market.

The other most exciting new industry is 3D printing or additive manufacturing, which many call a robotic technology. New manufacturing and prototyping techniques are already spawning a range of new products and services, both directly and indirectly. In general though, it’s the category creep that makes the strongest impression at CES. Many speakers in panels touched on the process whereby devices add functionality that ultimately change their core use case category.

CEA, the Consumer Electronic Association, tracks 8 categories at CES, in descending market share order; Information Technology, Communication Devices, Video Technology, Electronic Gaming, CE Accessories & Media, Automotive Electronics, Audio Technology and Home Technology. The categories which have grown most over the last 5 years are IT and communication devices, with a comparative decline in gaming and video. This is in large part due to the rise of the mobile multipurpose (communication) device aka the smartphone.

While consumer robotics is still just a fraction of the robotics industry, the overall CE industry is growing. Sales in the US are projected to grow 2.7% in 2013 to $206.9 billion. The global forecast is for more than $1 trillion in global consumer technology spending. CES launched 20,000 new products, to 150,000+ attendees over 3 sprawling venues, in a tech showcase so large that you need golf carts and shuttle buses and a whole week to see it all. Only 59 companies identified as a “robotics”.

But keeping a sense of proportion, CES is not the biggest circus in Las Vegas. The largest annual convention here is Cowboy Christmas which covers 4 convention centers and includes the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo. And the runner up is World of Concrete.

It’s time to get lean and keen. Send us your pitch. 1 short paragraph. Answer a couple of questions. That’s it!

If you’re at the stage where you have a 1 page executive summary (or want to write one), or have a profile on GUST or Angel List, then you can also upload to this form. If you are in business or seeking funding in Silicon Valley then you should also join Silicon Valley Robotics.

Templates: Exec_Summary_Format [pdf] Exec-Summary-Format [doc]

I interviewed Elad Inbar, CEO of the RobotAppStore, just before the announcement that Grishin Robotics was investing $250,000 in this cloud robotics market play.

For Grishin Robotics, the future is in the clouds. Grishin Robotics are investing $250,000 into RobotAppStore, an online marketplace for robotics applications. It seems that Grishin is betting on the robotics industry following the same patterns as the smartphone or personal computing industry. But can robotics be compared to either personal computing or smartphones, given the lack of a unified robotic platform or even a common robotic function?

Elad Inbar, the founder of RobotAppStore believes that we are seeing the same sort of convergence in robotics as happened in the mobile phone industry. In the early days of the phone industry, developers used to have to build a different ring tone for every single model of phone, even phones from the same company. This convergence in robotics owes a lot to the development of ROS and the increasing use of COTS or common technologies.

RobotAppStore and Grishin Robotics also have infographics on robot apps and cloud robotics.

For Grishin Robotics, the future is in the clouds.

Grishin Robotics are investing $250,000 into RobotAppStore, an online marketplace for robotics applications. It seems that Grishin is betting on the robotics industry following the same patterns as the smartphone or personal computing industry. But can robotics be compared to either personal computing or smartphones, given the lack of a unified robotic platform or even a common robotic function?

Elad Inbar, the founder of RobotAppStore believes that we are seeing the same sort of convergence in robotics as happened in the mobile phone industry. In the early days of the phone industry, developers used to have to build a different ring tone for every single model of phone, even phones from the same company. This convergence in robotics owes a lot to the development of ROS and the increasing use of COTS or common technologies.

Since opening in 2011 in San Francisco, Elad and RobotAppStore have built up an inventory of hundreds of apps for dozens of different robots, from the Roomba vacuum cleaners, to Spheros, AR Drone quadcopters and humanoids like the Aldebaran Nao robots. The apps range from the entertaining, like a Roomba delivering a birthday cake and singing “Happy Birthday”, to the eminently practical, like an app giving an early overheating warning for the Nao.

The market feedback is that consumers who purchase one robot app, go on to purchase all the available apps for their robot. Inbar also finds that many people who contact the RobotAppStore don’t have a robot yet, but see the AppStore as a gateway to learning more about robots, so he’s launched Robopedia, a ‘wikipedia for robots’. Another way that Inbar is building the ecosystem of cloud robotics is by providing support for robot app developers, creating documentation to help developers make a career out of writing software for robots.

The personal robotics market is a rapidly growing industry – estimated by ABI research to hit the $18 billion mark in 2015. According to RobotAppStore estimates, based on figures provided by UNECE, IFR, ABI Research and BCC Research, more than 30 million programmable robots have been sold to date.

“Robotics is a combination of good hardware and software – thus, the important role of a project like the RobotAppStore in the market ecosystem is unquestionable. The concept of ‘Cloud robotics’, which implies ability of all robots to connect to the internet, share a common knowledge database and seamlessly upgrade their functions in real-time, is a soon-to-be future; one reminiscent of the of personal computer industry. We believe that the strong team behind RobotAppStore coupled with their ability to leverage the advantages of having strong community already built around the product, can make this future closer”, said Dmitry Grishin, founder of Grishin Robotics, Co-Founder & CEO of Mail.Ru Group.

“The support provided by Grishin Robotics is a great vote of confidence in our plans for the company,” said Elad Inbar, Founder & CEO of RobotAppStore. “It shows their belief in our vision and the importance of the marketplace for robotics applications. The robotics industry has reached its tipping-point with broad market acceptance, usability of robots, and the ability to extend the robots’ capabilities. Being a part of Grishin Robotics’ portfolio provides high synergy with other robotics companies and better resource utilization. We are excited to use this funding to secure our place as THE market-leader of the consumer and educational robot-apps™ industry. I would like to thank our community of developers, and invite awesome and creative developers to join us!”

I interviewed Elad Inbar, founder of RobotAp Store, for the Robot Startup Series, where he speaks in more depth about Grishin’s investment in RobotAppStore and the synergy of their vision of cloud robotics.

Bob Christopher was CEO of Ugobe, the company that made Pleo, the robot dinosaur, one of the first successful consumer robotics products. Greg Appelhof is the CEO of TRG, a global retail company specializing in emerging technologies. Together they have written “The 2 Year Itch”, a paper advising hardware and robotics consumer technology companies on the finer points of surviving in the retail market.

In this video interview with Bob Christopher, the second in our robot startup series, he shares stories from the starting of Ugobe with Caleb Chung, and their first meetings with Greg Appelhof while they were doing stealth guerilla marketing at CES, the Consumer Electronics Show. Bob talks about developing an understanding of your retail partners balanced against a clear understanding of your product and your company’s ‘dna’ or core principles. He explains the term, 2 year itch as more than just a critical period in company lifespan when poor inventory management can sink a successful product. It also represents the uneasy position of a consumer hardware company bookended between the costs of manufacturing and the revenue of retail.

You can download a copy of  The 2 Year Itch here.

Consumer robotics had a watershed moment just a few days ago, when Autom, the robot weightloss coach, was launched at Dublin Web Summit. I’m very excited to open our Robot Startup Series with an interview with Dr Cory Kidd, the founder of Intuitive Automata and maker of Autom, which is now being produced by PCH International.

Autom was originally Cory’s PHD research at MIT, which he then moved an accelerator in Hong Kong. Most recently Cory has been travelling the globe to secure Autom’s Series A funding. And as a Robot Launchpad startup, Cory has offered to share his experience of the gruelling process from prototype to production. This interview was recorded just before Autom’s funding was finally finalized.

Also, stay tuned for an update to the interview, post funding!

Intuitive Automata introduction
Intuitive Automata creates interactive coaches for helping people better manage long-term health issues.  We address one of the biggest challenges in health care: getting patients to adhere to a medical or health regimen.  The technology is based on research by Dr. Kidd, our founder and CEO, that showed the efficacy of interactive robots at engaging a person over time and successfully conveying information to them.  He is joined by Bill McCord, our CTO who has over a decade of experience in commercial software development and has created the software on the robot and the back end.

Our platform has been shown to be significantly more effective at engaging a patient over an extended period of time, allowing them to better adhere to a treatment regimen as compared to web, computer, and mobile applications.  The advanced interaction algorithms that are drawn from psychology, medicine, and human-robot interaction are proven to be more engaging and effective at conveying information to the patient than screen-based systems.  We are building an API that allows us to license this core technology out to other companies while at the same time leveraging it as the main component of our products.  The physical nature of our weight combined with these algorithms has been shown to be more effective at keeping dieters engaged and has gained us early customers that include some of the largest US health insurance companies, hospital and provider networks, and employers.

Autom™
Autom™ is an interactive robotic weight loss coach that has been shown to be more effective at keeping a dieter engaged than any existing weight loss program.  Using proprietary AI algorithms that create a daily interactive conversation between the coach and the user, Autom™ is able to create and maintain a long-term relationship.

Developed by Intuitive Automata, the theories behind Autom™ were created by Dr. Cory Kidd as part of his Ph.D. at the MIT Media Lab.  He also worked closely with a leading medical weight loss expert, Dr. Caroline Apovian of Boston University Medical Center’s Nutrition and Weight Management Clinic, who remains medical advisor to the company.

Kidd Biography

Dr. Cory Kidd is the founder and CEO of Intuitive Automata, a health care technology company that creates interactive coaches to help people address the challenges of making lasting change.  Dr. Kidd received his M.S. and Ph.D. at the MIT Media Lab in human-robot interaction, a new field combining robotics, artificial intelligence, and psychology, among other disciplines.  While there, he conducted studies that showed the advantages of using a physical robot over screen-based interactions.  He also conducted an extensive study showing the efficacy of his weight loss coach in helping people to diet and did work in local nursing homes with robotic companions for elderly individuals.

Prior to his work at MIT, Dr. Kidd received his BS in Computer Science at the Georgia Institute of Technology.  While there he was a part of the Aware Home Research Initiative, a focused research effort that was looking for ways to allow older people to live in their homes longer.  He managed the research project and taught courses on related technologies.

Bossa Nova Robotics launched the lean version of Rosie, the robot maid from the Jetsons, today at Robobusiness. CEO Martin Hitch explained how Bossa Nova have taken their experience in the brutal and rapidly evolving robot  toy industry and translated it into what they hope will be the prototype of the common ‘economy model’ household robot. Bossa Nova are releasing the SDK and looking for developers. Oh, and it’s running Windows/Ros, and is tablet agnostic on a sleek 5 foot body on a pivoting tripod base with (patented) safety legs that can deploy even when powered off.

Robobusiness 2013 will be coming to Silicon Valley with a  startup focus (with Robot Launchpad) and there’s been a thread on lean methodology running through the keynote expert panels this morning. Dan Kara (analyst, Robotics Business Review)  is currently writing a piece on lean startup methodology for robotics. Dmitry Grishin (mail.ru & Grishin Robotics) wants to see more rapid iteration and testing.

Jan Westerhues (Robrt Bosch Venture Capital) wants to see real problems being solved using existing technology with a fast market path. Rodney Brooks (Rethink Robotics,  iRobot) says business models maybe more important than technology devlopments for robotics growth and that a customer development focus highlights how critical good design and usability is for success.

Customer development and solving real problems were at the heart of Aethon’s presentation and their mobile hospital robots are expanding in scope as well as distribution. But reducing research and development time by narrowing scope and producing a minimum viable product were the critical tactics in the early stages and spring directly from good customer development and market segmentation.

Gartner may have put mobile robots on the peak of the inflated hype cycle but from what we see today, it looks more like the start of a steady upward curve.

Is Robot Launchpad an accelerator or a hackerspace? Both. Right now we’re testing the viability of opening a robot hackerspace. Theoretically, this makes a lot of sense. I believe that the hackerspace and maker movement are fueling a resurgence of growth in hardware startups. Chris Anderson’s new book  Makers: The New Industrial Revolution, argues that we are seeing the third wave of the industrial revolution which started back in the 18th century.

“The real revolution here is not in the creation of the technology, but the democratization of the technology. It’s when you basically give it to a huge expanded group of people who come up with new applications, and you harness the ideas and the creativity and the energy of everybody. That’s what really makes a revolution.

…What we’re seeing here with the third industrial revolution is the combination of the two [technology and manufacturing]. It’s the computer meets manufacturing, and it’s at everybody’s desktop.”

This is a logical extension of Anderson’s 2004 book,  The Long Tail, which applied Mandelbrot’s statistical long tail distributions to the worlds of web commerce and manufacturing. Anderson deftly combined Clay Shirky’s 2003 observations that most websites were link poor, following a power law distribution [Power Laws, Weblogs and Inequality] and the observations of researchers, [Brynjolfsson, Yu and Smith 2003] who found that Amazon’s major book sales revenue came from providing small quantities of hard to find books for niche markets, rather than from its ability to undercut traditional brick and mortar bookshops by price lowering popular books.

Although cooperatives and microfinance are far from new concepts, the last decade has seen many online experiments in crowdsourcing finance, with initial success stories like Marillion, ArtistShare, Sellaband, Electric Eel Shock, fundavlog and Jason Kottke, occurring primarily in music and the arts. This was followed by the emergence of Kiva in 2005, and the rise of the ‘multipurpose’ crowdfunding site like IndieGoGo and CreateAFund (noGoFundMe) in 2008, and Kickstarter in 2009.

There are now dozens of crowdfunding sites and the popularity of hardware projects like 3D printers, robots, smartphone connected devices, internet enabled things has generated a small tsunami of press coverage, all talking about a crowdfunding led renaissance in hardware startups. WRONG! Or atleast incomplete. Our cultural habit is to mythologize the lone inventor, the individual, the artist, the entrepreneur. We frequently fail to consider the team or community environment. It may be more accurate to talk about how crowdfunding sites harvest the ripe fruit from the maker/hacker movement.

Creative tinkering has always been popular, as TV shows “How it’s Made” (2001) and “Mythbusters” (2002) demonstrate. But turning tinkering into a recognizable movement has had other tipping points, notably Make Magazine and the hackerspace movement. Make Magazine launched in 2005 and the first Maker Faire was held in 2006. Paul Bohm started Metalab in 2006 and then helped get the hackerspaces.org community started in 2007. Tech Shop opened its first location in 2006. There are now 6 TechShop locations across the US, with more planned for 2013. There are currently an estimated 700 to 1,100 active hackerspaces across the globe.

While there are no hard figures on how many successful startups or crowdfunding projects have come out of hackerspaces, I personally know of plenty. One of the most articulate of success stories has been that of David Lang and Eric Stackpole’s OpenROV, an open source underwater robot which recently raised over $110,000 on Kickstarter. David chronicled his journey “Zero to Maker” on Make Magazine, describing how in 2009 he turned sudden unemployment and zero maker skills into a crash course in how to make stuff and a partnership in the successful startup.

Some of our Robot Launchpad supporters wanted us to get a space, to incubate their startups, hold classes and generally hack robots. I thought that was a great idea but also maybe not high in priority, given the likely amount of effort involved. I hate saying “no” though, so using lean these days, I say “let’s test” instead. Is there enough interest in having a robot hackerspace for us to make it happen? Is there enough interest for other people to make it happen? How do we test? I started a meetup. I didn’t publicize it. *

“Do you love building robots or want somewhere for your kids to learn robotics? Do you love Maker Faire but hate driving around the Bay Area for techshops, hacker dojos, cowork spaces and other workshops?”

What was the result? Only a few people showed up to our meetup, but they were passionate about wanting a robot hackerspace. In a very short space of time, we’ve moved from meetup to grant application with solid partnerships with local council and major research laboratories. Looks like we might open our doors in a few short months. All the stakeholders believe that a hackerspace operates as an accelerator for innovation; recruits and retains talent for robotics and engineering generally; and promotes STEM curricula (science, technology, engineering and math) to the whole community.

It makes good theoretical sense to use a hackerspace as part of an accelerator. Incubators and accelerators are constantly evolving from models that provide premises, training and funding, that may or may not be part of a larger organization, to models that provide nothing but a cooperative community sharing resources.  Some take equity, some ask for rent. Some take cuts at both ends. Some have sliding payment scales and operate in tranches, others have fixed programs. There are a lot of variations and not all accelerators/incubators deliver value. I’ve tracked more than 200 and put the list on our Robot Launchpad directory. It’s the most comprehensive list I could find anywhere.

Imagine how enormous the list will be with 1000+ hackerspaces added! DIY acceleration.

* I’ll add that the very first thing I did was ask existing organizations (like TechShop) if they were interested in expanding out our way. More efficient that way, even if less fun!

Maykah team at Maker Faire: Alice Brooks, Bettina Chen, Jennifer Kessler who make ‘Roominate’ the DIY electrical dollhouse.

Celebrate women in science and technology today, in honor of Ada Lovelace, world’s first computer programmer. Ada Lovelace Day was started by Suw Charman-Anderson in 2009 in recognition that good role models are crucial to engaging and retaining women in STEM.

I’m going to celebrate Ada Lovelace day by recognizing the awesome things that people are doing to encourage girls to become engineers. Robotics is an exciting area with many amazing and influential women. It’s proven to be an enticing entry point for K-12 students into STEM career choices. I was going to post a list of great women in robotics but an article crossed my desk today talking about one of the subtler difficulties of attracting girls to STEM (science, technology, engineering & math).

Girls decide what they AREN’T going to study much earlier than they decide what they will study (and much sooner than boys do). So, girls are far more likely to limit their possible career choices before they are actually ready to make them. Intervention at college level, or even high school level comes far too late according to Stephen Cooper, associate professor of computer science at Stanford University and chairman of the board of the Computer Science Teachers Association for US K-12 educators.

There is a window of opportunity to excite and inspire girls that is wide open in elementary school and rapidly closing in the middle school years (11-14yrs). Programs such as the First Lego League can be critical interventions. So can after-school robotics clubs but not if  we don’t have proactive gender policies.

Two weeks ago, the robotics after-school program kicked off at my children’s middle school. It was advertized in the school newsletter and the gifted & talented program. The school has an approx equal ratio of boys/girls, around 800 in total. 66 students wanted to join the club. There were only 4 girls and they were all 6th graders (11yrs old) not 7th or 8th graders. This is in a supportive environment where the volunteer coach (me), the teacher and high school mentors are all female!

Based on my previous experience building female participation, I will take extra care to put the girls in a team with friends, to encourage them to bring friends along and to nip in the bud any undermining behaviors. But it still makes me sad.

That’s why I’m going to cheer myself up and celebrate Ada Lovelace day by recognizing some of the awesome things that people are doing to encourage girls to become engineers.

Roominate: A toy that inspires girls (or anyone who likes building houses) to build circuits and make their house come to life! Roominate was started by 3 young women at Stanford and thoroughly tested on children at the Exploratorium.

Goldieblox: A construction toy and book series, Goldieblox might be for young girls but there still aren’t enough interesting girl toys out there according to founder Debbie Sterling and Riley.

Lilypad Arduino: Microcontroller board designed for wearables and e-textiles by Leah Buechley and Sparkfun. It can be sewn to sensors, power supplies and actuators with conductive thread.

Cubelets: A modular construction toy, and CMU spinoff, that appeals to both young and old with their very tangible interface.

Scratch: A programming language and education community designed at MIT to encourage everyone to create and share interactive stuff. Scratch can be used with game controllers and sensors and can also be used to program motors, including Lego.

Minecraft: A virtual building game, you can build anything you can imagine. At night monsters come out. My middle school girls love it.

I also hope that initiatives like Robot Garden - our soon to open robot hackerspace – will appeal to a wide range of the community. We have carefully selected the name and our ‘brand’ to be as inclusive and inspiring as possible.

I thought I’d document our somewhat unusual journey through lean startup methodology and robotics. I founded Robot Launchpad almost a year ago to test the assumption that robotics and lean went together, that startups were startups whether they were hardware or software, that Silicon Valley was the place to do it, and that growing my own startup was the best way to test all these assumptions.

Lean refers to the increasingly influential ‘lean startup’ methodology of Eric Ries, that focuses on a fast cycle of ‘build, measure, learn’, using minimum viable products to get to the ‘measure, learn’ stage quickly. The key concept is ‘innovation accounting’ which tries to identify meaningful metrics that may be completely unrelated to anything in a traditional business plan. The key concept is that a startup is “an organization formed to search for a repeatable and scaleable business model”. [Steve Blank 2010] As such, a startup operates under conditions of extreme uncertainty, not having a product/market fit.

I was on the robot conference rounds, finishing my masters thesis in human-robot culture, and a common discussion theme was ‘Why is it so hard to get investment in all these wonderful robot ideas!’ and ‘What is going to be the breakout robot business?’. I’d also just moved to Silicon Valley from Australia with my partner who is running a technology accelerator. The opportunities in Silicon Valley for startups seemed immense compared to the tiny startup ecosystem in Sydney.

In hindsight, I started trying to find something that didn’t exist because of some cultural misapprehensions. To me, ‘Silicon Valley’ was a brand rather than a fixed location and ‘tech’ meant hardware not just software. The more I looked around, the more it seemed that there was very little bridging the thriving startup scenes and the hardware/robotics communities. It looked like people were interested in closing the gap though.

It was comparatively easy to pitch the idea of Robot Launchpad and collect great cofounders and advisors. What was our plan? Test the core assumption – that robotics and startup communities together would produce increased innovation and growth. How? First, to run events, like hackathons but with a business model competition, like a startup weekend but for robots.

We developed our very own ‘robot startup’ competition format but had limited support for something new and untested. We also were being viewed as ‘competition’ by potential partners. Solution? Did we need our own competition or could we test by adding value to other events?

We partnered with a global cloud robotics hackathon, we ran the robot track at Mega Startup Weekend, we had a 2 day roboticists retreat, we ran a robot/hardware track at Google IO afterhack weekend, and quietly infiltrated a number of other events, groups and discussions.

Summary? Core assumption valid, but customer segment and business model still missing. We’ve been wildly successful at creating excitement about robotics at startup events, and vice versa. We’ve inspired other events. We’ve followed up with the people who’ve produced robot business ideas and watched their journey.

Success, in so far as we’ve thrown down a bunch of fertilizer and watched things grow; lovely weed choked uncultivated robot startups. Business model? Everyone wants robots or robot tracks at their events/conferences. Do we want to become event managers or a PR firm? Not really, I want to find structural elements in the situation that can get a global solution, positioning as a potential high growth startup not a service.

Business model? Customer segment? Early stage startups need the most assistance and are least able to afford it. We’ve been exploring offering tailored events or classes in business model generation, customer segmentation, innovation accounting etc. to early stage startups. Something class, web or group based that is affordable, repeatable and ideally scaleable.

Test? Advertized several workshops on our growing newsletter and new website. Result: very little interest. Followed up with interviews with robot startups about what they need/want? Most robot startups just want publicity leading to more customers and better access to VC funding. The startups that recognize a need for advanced coaching/advice also know that it’s available directly from lean startup circles, workshops, classes and books by Steve Blank, Eric Ries, Alexander Osterwalder, Trevor Owens, Patrick Vlasqovits, Brant Cooper etc. Or these resources are available in accelerators, something robot startups would like to join.

Partway through the year we realize that we have moved from running events and growing a robot startup community to being an accelerator. We’re still partnering with lean startup groups on robot specific issues. We also see value in developing a quality assurance checklist specific to robot startups. This is a potential business model.

Test? Startups sign up. We interview them, explore the gaps and look for opportunities, we make introductions. Success, but slow. Startups are interested but given the overall numbers, the variation in verticals and growth stages, it’s difficult to have a ‘cohort’. Or to see measurable results yet. We hope to have a couple of high profile robot startups talk about how we helped, when their funding rounds are finished. We’d love to manage a fund or partner with a fund. That’s under discussion.

But the reality is robotics is currently small, rapidly growing and hugely prone to being absorbed into other verticals. Hardware specific funds and accelerators like PCH International, HAXLR8R, Lemnos Labs and Grishin Robotics exist or have formed recently, and existing funds, like Y Combinator, are accepting more robotic startups. Investors may be our real customer, but the market is already responding to the need.

Not all accelerators offer seed funding, some offer connections, some offer resources, some offer facilities. Some of the robot startups in Silicon Valley wanted a space. Kind of like a tech shop or hackerspace. I don’t see this as a viable business model. I don’t think it’s my priority. In fact, I don’t think this is going to work at all, but why not test it? (Remember, we’re a boot strapping startup. We don’t know what our business model is or our product/market fit. We’re using lean startup methodology. We’re going to test everything!)

…. to be continued…..

Kickstarter’s recent decision making it very difficult for hardware projects to use the platform just highlights two very useful things to know about crowdfunding. Firstly, not all crowdfunding platforms are equal. And secondly, the decision to disallow renderings and multiple product rewards only affects the lazy kickstarter projects that probably weren’t going to be successful anyway. Lazy crowdfunding projects make two big mistakes; like hoping that the platform will do all the marketing; or using the project as a learning curve in design, manufacturing and delivery.

First of all, there are dozens of crowdfunding platforms these days (Kickstarter, IndieGoGo, When You Wish, FundaGeek, Invest.in, Launcht, Catarse, WeFund, Pozible, Quirky, 33seeds, RocketHub, peerbacker, etc.). Each favours a certain community or marketing approach and some have an approval process. But when push comes to shove, it’s about how much equity you give up, what charges you pay, how long does it take to get your money, and whether or not you can accept donations or have an any funds model.

There are 3 good reasons to turn to crowdfunding for your robot and they describe 3 completely different sorts of projects. Which sort of project you are will determine what sort of crowdfunding platform you choose.

1. You have a big mail list already and can use crowdfunding as a preorder shopfront and also a way of building your community… the community that you already have! This works really well for many musicians, video game and comic book artists, some of whom have raised pretty big funds. This will work for robot or hardware projects when you have a track record of product delivery, are some kind of superstar, or maybe moonlight for a magazine or media company. You can probably ask for $50,000+

2. You are testing your market strategy, or maybe your marketers. You might need to do several different campaigns. You might need to get some of your funding elsewhere. You definitely don’t want to underprice and overpromise, so try to find your product market fit while also nailing down design specs and your market channel’s price point. You can probably ask for $5,000 – $20,000. Yes, you might need to put your molds on your maxxed out credit cards, but you are much more likely to attract angel backing if you can demonstrate customer interest.

3. You have a dream. This is the heart of crowdfunding. Use it! Sell us on your dream and send us nothing but stickers and t-shirts. Send us updates and a chance to join your community of dreamers. You can probably raise up to $10,000 to fund your prototype. This is a creative project. Use rewards that are an experience, a souvenir, a chance to share the excitement. It’s also a great way to get some customer validation before going any further. If you can’t find people to fund your prototype dreams, maybe your product idea needs more work.

This last approach to crowdfunding robots is underutilized but has been successfully used by many projects which then moved from prototyping into presales. Rumor even has it that Lit Motors crowdfunded their crash tests! This kind of crowdfunding is customer development and very lean startup in methodology. It’s not the same as the Jobs Act style crowdfunding which could lead to later trouble getting VC or angel investment (as reported in PandoDaily).

It was announced today that Grishin Robotics  was investing $250,000 investment into Y Combinator startup Double Robotics. Double Robotics have already sold out their first order of affordable telepresence robots and look poised to meet the increased demand in high tech low cost consumer robotics with this investment (see previous post “Double Robotics – Crossing the Chasm?“).

Double Robotics, a recent graduate from Y Combinator (http://ycombinator.com), builds telepresence robots, characterized by ground-breaking price ($2,499, can be pre-ordered now for $1,999), great design, light weight and high level of simplicity — it works right “out of box” and uses iPad as a platform.

Double Robotics already has $1.2 million (600 units) in pre-orders (in one month since the launch), from 44 countries around the world. Customers include 24 universities, as well as 17 Fortune 500 companies. Since the first production run of Double has already sold out, the investment from Grishin Robotics will be spent primarily on scaling manufacturing, as well as hiring and further product development. New pre-orders will be delivered in early 2013. Engineers interested in career in Double Robotics can get in touch with the company by the e-mail jobs@doublerobotics.com. [Press Release NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwire - Sep 21, 2012)]

Double Robotics have just moved into their own premises in Mountain View, and it’s encouraging to see that Silicon Valley startup culture is producing such good returns for robotics, both for robotics professionals and for the hopes of robot companies looking for investors. The time is ripe for consumer oriented robots that are more than toys. Sophisticated robotics have become affordable – largely by leveraging smartphone and tablet technology and internet connectivity. This aligns with Dmitry Grishin’s background as cofounder of mail.Ru, the giant Russian mail and media service. It will be interesting to see if Grishin stays in the comfort zone of communication robotics in the future, or steps out into the world of more task oriented robotics.

“Investment in Double Robotics perfectly fits our strategy,” said Dmitry Grishin, founder of Grishin Robotics. “It is a consumer-oriented product with potential to fit a broad range of applications and has already generated strong consumer demand. It’s also important that the price of the product makes it accessible to the wide audience. In addition, the team has creative approach to design and is keen to build user-friendly products — both are very important focus areas for next-generation personal robotics companies. Double Robotics is well positioned to leverage the unique potential of the prominent telepresence robotics market. We have a great belief in Double Robotics team and its product.”

“We are thrilled to have Grishin Robotics and Dmitry Grishin, in particular, as our largest investor to date,” said David Cann, Co-founder of Double Robotics. “We read about the new investment firm and Dmitry’s experience in the field of robotics in June 2012 when the fund was announced. The timing was perfect, as we were just beginning the Y Combinator program with our prototype robot. After our public launch in August, we met with Grishin Robotics and were immediately impressed with their mission and deep knowledge of the robotics industry’s past mistakes and potential future. We look forward to working with Grishin Robotics in the years to come as we build our business.” [Press Release NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwire - Sep 21, 2012)]

Double Robotics, the Ycombinator company behind ‘wheels for the ipad’ is a fantastic showcase of the new breed of affordable consumer robotics. But can they cross the chasm? These guys know how to create a beautiful accessible easy to use robot. And so far, also how to market it.

Double Robotics’ first production run has sold out with over $1 million in orders. This combination of good initial marketing, affordable price point and getting preorders has allowed Double Robotics to avoid the Series A funding bottleneck.

Good news? In general, yes. However, I don’t believe that Double Robotics have found product/market fit. They’re using a shotgun strategy to cross the chasm, to make the move from early tech adopters to mainstream customers. It might work.

This is a challenge many robotics startups will face. Do you focus on selling your robot as a completely new solution with an unknown product/market fit? Or do you spend more time doing customer development, creating product/market fit in a specific vertical?

Ultimately, this raises the question of crossing the chasm vs race to the bottom.

Geoffrey Moore’s concept of a chasm (to be crossed) in the classic adoption cycle describes the difference between early adopter customers and the general market, and the resulting dilemma. Selling to the first segment of your cycle doesn’t guarantee selling to all segments, in spite of the hype your early evangelists drum up.

Double Robotics may have > $1 million in preorders, but at $2000 ea, that’s only 500+ orders. The early tech adopter market at that price point is probably 10-100 x larger. After that, Double need a more pragmatic model.  (I would argue that selling to educational, health and govt related organizations will keep the long tail wagging happily for years to come.  The value add can be simply in increasing the tech savvy reputation of organizations, eg. for $2500 ea my organization is going to be seen to be delivering innovative technological solutions regardless of ultimate practical use.)

Double are pitching a problem solved – cheap easy to use telerobotics – rather than a product for specific market uses. When someone discovers a viable business model, then Double may have the early mover advantage but it rapidly becomes a race to the bottom.

The race to the bottom, like the tragedy of the commons and the prisoner’s dilemma, occurs when communal good is overshadowed by individual greed. The moment that a product/market fit for cheap telerobotics emerges, competition for those market segments will inspire ever cheaper solutions. Robotic vacuum cleaners have been in a similar position. Originally, iRobot, Evolution Robotics/Mint and Neato, were specialist robotics companies with vacuum cleaners as their primary product. Now companies with robotic vacuum cleaners number in the dozens, from cut price clones like Metapo and iTouchless to large consumer appliance/electronics manufacturers like Samsung.

First mover companies have to compete to retain market share with companies that don’t fund research, development, or support and this can in turn damage overall market penetration. Less tech savvy consumers (like my family) have gone to purchase a whizz-bang robot vac and come away from the experience disappointed with the lack of features, the performance, robustness and reliability. Ipods might be mp3 players but not all mp3 players are ipods.

If an idea finally matures, like robot vacuum cleaners, then the originals are also competing against large companies who can access economies of scale including in support, like Samsung. Robotics is in an interesting situation – does it become subsumed into the next product iteration, where every product has robotic features and none worth talking about. Cars are a good example. Or do the ‘robotic’ features carry enough value for niche (robotics) companies to flourish?

Is ‘wheels for your ipad’ going to be a robot company or just another ipad accessory? And can Double Robotics be more than just an early adopter robot toy?

Claire Delauney’s Botiful Kickstarter campaign is in its last hours and as she crosses the funded line, Claire shares with us some of her strategies and insights into running a successful Kickstarter. (SF Bay Area Robotics Meetup) No, it isn’t always easy or #botiful, but Claire’s tips include:

• Have a captivating video with a clear message in the opening seconds.
• Engage with audience via updates – extend your story.
• Conversion rates are very low, so you have to reach beyond your own channels.
• It takes 100s of attempts to get media/blog interest.
• Be full time on your campaign, and in hindsight, also engage a PR specialist.

Jeremy Conrad, from Lemnos Labs, had some price point insights:

• Add 40% margin to your max cost estimate to protect against unforeseen.

This is a great tip because many campaigns that I’ve seen operate on a “we only charge what we’ll need to manufacture”. Firstly, this doesn’t leave you with any margin when shit does happen, and potentially leaves you out of pocket or your backers without any rewards. Secondly, unless you only want to make one batch of your robot, how are you going to distribute in future?

Distributors need to have a margin on top of manufacture and if you set the public expectation of your price point below the final market price, then you aren’t an attractive distribution prospect. It’s not enough to think about how to fund the project. You have to think about how to manufacture and distribute afterwards, including packaging and branding, so that future products have some tie in.

I provided an introduction to the Meetup with some Kickstarter “robot” project statistics, which I’ve scraped from their site. I’ll share a full post later on but in brief:

• 50% projects are unsuccessful
• Kickstarter is a long tail business – drop off in $ raised from 1st to 10th is huge.
• Majority of projects are about $3000-$4000
• Average pledge is $80ish but median pledge is closer to $30

• Claire Delauney (Botiful) – Botiful campaign (video & updates)
• Elad Inbar (Robot App Store) – Botiful/RAS blog dialogues
• Saurabh Palan (iRoboticist) – most number of #botiful shares (twitter, facebook and face to face)
• Jeremy Conrad (Lemnos Labs) – promoting and supporting robot startups & events generally

One thing to consider before crowdfunding your robot startup, is that around half of all projects don’t get funded. Also, some crowdfunding platforms specialize in creative projects or projects with a lower average target than a hardware startup. Those 6 figure success stories are unusual if you look closely at the data. I’m currently drafting up a deeper look at crowdfunding data vis robots (or product based projects). Crowdfunding can be an amazing tool for launching your robot startup but too many good robots are missing their target due to lack of marketing. Not only is hardware more expensive to launch than an album or even a short film, but we often also lack the fan base.

But at Robot Launchpad, a problem is just an opportunity we haven’t seized yet. We’re going to launch the Launchies! Let’s see who the social network sharp shooters are! The Launchies are awards for robot startup marketing. First topic – Botiful (or #botiful) - Claire Delauney’s ‘Botiful’ kickstarter campaign closes on Wednesday August 22nd and is 75% 80% funded. We should all be backers because Botiful is beautiful, but we want everyone to test their market channels.

• Best/funniest share of video (check out Elad’s entry already at Robot App Store!)
• Best/funniest share of picture
• Best/funniest share of text (tweet or blog)
• Most number of times #botiful is shared
• and overall Biggest Social Badass award

plus most creative use of ANY/ALL social networks – not just internet ones!

Don’t make us search for you – send us a link! Awards winners will be announced on Tuesday 21st August at the SF Bay Area Robotics Meetup. There will be trophies and prizes! There will be glory!

Ken Ihara’s creation “The Cardboard Robot” has just been funded on Kickstarter. The Cardboard Robot is a giant industrial sized robot arm with a reach just shy of 6 feet. Attach the smart phone camera attachment, and you have a robotic camera crane. The computer-controlled cardboard robot plugs into your computer via the USB port and is fully programmable. In software, you can define set points and then have the robot arm run through the programmed path. You can save your programmed paths as CSV files, which you can edit in Excel.  Motor speed is independently adjustable. As PC World put it, one advantage is it’s industrial size but can’t kill you. The other great advantage is cost.

CNET- “Thanks to its corrugated construction, the Cardboard Robot lets you command your own industrial-size claw or film crane for a fraction of the cost of a metal arm.”

There have been other cardboard robots, even robot arms but this one is the first to combine functionality with affordability. Ihara reached his relatively modest Kickstarter goal of $10,000 with days to spare. Also for every $3,000 that is raised by the Kickstarter funding campaign, Ihara will send one complete kit to a high school in the USA.

Cardboard is economical in and of itself, but its light weight as a material creates a reduction in costs across the board, as motors don’t need to be as large or powerful, etc. Robotics is perhaps a better use for cardboard because of the flow on effect, rather than the infamous cardboard bicycle which might only cost $9 to make but will retail for approx $90. You can buy a metal bike from Walmart for the same price. (Gioria Kariv from Israel is pictured here from recent press but another variant was also created in 2008 by UK student Phil Bridge)

Kariv credits a cardboard canoe for giving him inspiration. I am similarly inspired by the Origami Kayak. Oru is made out of corrugated polypropolene rather than pure cardboard , but has similar features. It’s strong, light, flexible and cheap. Both materials allow for different design and manufacturing techniques which haven’t been fully explored yet.

If you haven’t seen Anton Willis demonstrating his kayak at TechShop or at meetups, then you can read David Lang’s piece on Oru for Make Magazine. Anton Willis used TechShop to create prototypes for a product that is now ready for sale. He’s also inspired by the many other untapped projects for polypropolene and cardboard.

The potential in new ways to construct robots is as exciting for robotics as the other recent changes like rapid prototyping, bespoke manufacturing and 3d printing.

Robots Podcast is the place to hear the latest well informed news and views on robotics. I’m honored to have been interviewed about Robot Launchpad for the July 13 2012 podcast. Robots is a non-profit association dedicated to providing free, high quality, educational information for the robotics community and the general public, based in Switzerland but with global tendencies and they’ve been producing great podcasts since 2006. New episodes are released every two weeks, on Fridays at 9am GMT.

In addition to insights from high-profile professionals, Robots will take you for a ride through the world’s research labs, robotics companies and their latest innovations. I’m afraid I was on vacation when the Robot Launchpad podcast was released so I didn’t publicize it very well, but the whole list of podcasts HERE is great listening.

Robots: Launching Startups - mp3

Frank Tobe’s ‘The Robot Report’ has just launched a great map of global robot startups and he’d like your robot startup information…

Please add to our list of global robotic start-up companies by sending information to info@therobotreport.com. Thank you.
… Click to see the 104 global robotic start-up companies in detail.
… PS: There are 800+ industrial and service robot vendors in our database in addition to the start-ups – see below (left column) – plus 250 research labs and 650 ancillary businesses.

Take an existing robot platform – EITHER an autonomous mobile robot (like Adept’s) OR a semi-autonomous drone (like Parrot’s)  – and create a successful business. MVP it. Find customers. Build software/website. Create a market. Distribute it, sell it, support it, grow it. Congratulations, you just won… NO, you just earned a million dollars!

It’s about turning your great idea into products for others to enjoy. That’s difficult. But we’re really excited by the opportunities that exist for great robot businesses built on existing robot platforms. The Joggobot is a great example.

The Joggobot is the creation of Floyd Mueller and Eberhard Gräther of the Exertion Games Lab at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Australia.

This is a great idea. I want one. Who else does? And out of everyone who wants it, who has the money to pay for drone plus software plus marketing plus… Well, probably a lot of people do! Do the research and find your product/market fit.

Maybe crossing the chasm isn’t exciting for robot researchers but by now robotics is very ready for a service industry ecosystem. A relatively small pool of robotics researchers have other things to do than create ‘killer robot apps’! One way to kickstart the robot business model process is to involve select domain experts to better explore need. Another is to have diversity in your design team. At Robot Launchpad HQ we have a heap of ideas for great robot businesses, but ideas are worthless unless someone executes.

Here’s an example: What about ‘lost child finding’ quadrocopters? The average toddler is remarkably adept at slipping away, avoiding restraints, unlocking doors and disappearing into crowds. There’s no replacing parental care though. The average parent wouldn’t be the market, but the average parent would appreciate shopping malls, playgroups, playgrounds, restaurants, sports events etc. that offered simple additional safety services. Put the mall app on your phone and send a photo of your toddler to the mall drones, as a supplement to the existing lost child services.

I personally think that involving the mothers of toddlers into a discussion about robots will unlock a heap of other pain points that might have robot answers. It’s the first steps in the oncoming consumer robot revolution, starting with controllable semiprivate indoor spaces that are halfway between the factory or warehouse and the home. I’m thinking shopping malls, hospitals, airports, sports stadiums, prisons etc.

So the Robot Launchpad Grand Challenge is to create a viable robot business using an existing autonomous aerial or mobile robot. Keeping it simple, think of controllable indoor spaces and easily programmed GUIs using a smartphone and/or a cloud service. You are putting the value in the sandwich between the robot hardware and the internet/phone. Find the customers, create the market. Ship the robot. Support the business. Earn a million dollars and our undying respect in the Robot Startup Hall of Fame!

ENTER NOW!

]]> http://robotlaunch.com/2012/06/robot-launchpad-grand-challenge-2012/feed/ 0 http://robotlaunch.com/2012/05/latest-updates/ http://robotlaunch.com/2012/05/latest-updates/#comments Thu, 31 May 2012 01:49:45 +0000 Andra http://www.robotlaunch.com/?p=378

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AUVSI Meeting | Meetups | Robot Potluck| IP for Robotics | Robot Startup 101 course soon | plus re robot or startup events ROBOT Launch Pad A robot startup community ~ growing robots one startup at a time. A very quick update, ahead of Homebrew tonight and the AUVSI meeting tomorrow. The IP for robotics workshop will be happening later in June – details being confirmed. Keep the evening of June 27 free for a great Robot Potluck with Robot Launch Pad and the Homebrew Robotics Club. We are still starting up lots of change over the next few months (watch robotlaunch.com evolving). What’s Going on in the ROBOT Startup Community Homebrew Robotics Club Wednesday, May 30 @7pm | Google Crusher Tech Talk Homebrew Robotics Club tonight! Hardware Startup Meetup Thursday, May 31 | 6pm – 8pm | Jellyfish Art Hear from speakers at the forefront of research on robot-human interactions as they discuss the standards and requirements that need to be taken into consideration when developing new robots. AUVSI Meeting & Speaker Thursday, May 31 | 6pm – 8pm | Flight Operations Building, NASA/Ames, Moffett FieldOur May meeting will feature a presentation by Bryant Walker Smith, Fellow at the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School and Stanford’s Center for Automotive Research on Understanding the Legal Issues of Driverless Car Integration.We will also be joined by AUVSI Foundation Executive Director, Daryl Davidson, who will discuss the foundation and current and future projects. This is a great opportunity to discuss your interests and concerns for AUVSI with someone from the home office.If you plan on attending the meeting, please contact svcauvsi@gmail.com by Wednesday, May 30 at 5 pm so that we can provide adequate refreshments. We welcome all who are interested to attend. Sensored Meetup Monday, June 4 | 7pm – 9pm | Lemnos Labs, SF Sorry about typo! Sensored is a great showcase for bio sensors this month. Other sensors also included – or featured in other meetups. Robotics IP Workshop late June | date/time tbc | CIS, Stanford Join legal experts for a workshop on IP issues for robotics. More details closer to the event. Homebrew Robot Potluck with Robot Launch Pad Wednesday, June 27 @7pm | Blaze cafe, Google Homebrew Robotics Club invite Robot Launch Pad to join the end of year robot potluck! Bring your robots and let’s party. More details closer to the event. Robot Startup 101 series starting soon | online & tba 4-6 week workshop on need finding, MVP, building business model and pitch. Details to be finalized but we’ll be offering 2 hour online workshops in day or evening, a condensed version and face-to-face. The idea is workshopping your idea so groups will be very small. Final session will be pitching to 3 angel investors/VCs for feedback. INTERESTED? Top Upcoming Robot Startup Events June 4 –  Sensored Meetup June 5 - Solid State Startups June 8-9 - Reinvent Business Hackathon June 15-16 – Open Science Summit (with added robots?) details tbc June 27 - Robot Potluck with Homebrew Robotics tba – Robot Startup 101 tba – IP for Robotics expert panel  follow on Twitter | friend on Facebook | forward to a friend Copyright © 2012 RobotLaunchPad, All rights reserved.  unsubscribe from this list | update subscription preferences

2. Broader Financial Climate

A positive indicator for robotics startups is the improving financial climate. There are signs that the US housing market is stabilizing. Fannie Mae, the government backed mortgage company, has posted a profit for the first time since 2007 without needing a government bailout. The decline in home prices is slowing, as are mortgage delinquency rates and the rate of American home purchasing is on the rise again.

“We expect our financial results for 2012 to be significantly better than 2011,” Susan R. McFarland, Fannie Mae’s chief financial officer, said in a statement. “As our serious delinquency rate declines and home prices stabilize, we expect to reduce our reserves, which combined with revenue from our high-quality new book of business will drive our future results.” [1]

While not everyone is getting rich yet, the overall financial indicators show that the U.S. economy has rebounded faster than predicted. The stock market has doubled since 2009, corporate profits are surging and the U.S. economy is growing at 3% pa. As financial journalist Daniel Gross puts it:

“Like the world’s first bionic man, the U.S. economy has come back—better, stronger, and faster than most analysts expected, and than most of its peers.” [2]

While this is a U.S. centric view and some of Europe is still in financial crisis, nonetheless China and S.E.Asia are surging and many African economies are showing very promising proportional growth rates. There are other sources that describe the current world economic status but it’s no longer a bad time for a capital intensive industry like robotics to grow. Particularly if business models lower the risk by utilizing lease models or the rapid cheap trial and error methods of startups.

Where Defense budgets are tightening on traditional robotics, like unmanned systems, the Whitehouse is committing spending towards other newer robotics growth areas. All this indicates that robotics is ready to support itself as an industry, rather than be supported as a research project. Legislation is being passed allowing the introduction of driverless cars and by 2015 we may see changes permitting the commercial use of small drones in U.S. airspace.

3. Maturity of Robotics Technology

Rodney Brooks, founder of iRobot and current CEO of Heartland Robotics, is one of many expressing the view that robotics has progressed beyond a cool new research area and into the world of robot products. While making new discoveries is exciting, there isn’t enough effort going in to using those same exciting new technologies in everyday applications.

 ”Users just want to get a task done. They don’t care if it’s a cool robot. You may, but they may not care if it’s a robot at all,” [3]

So, the question now isn’t what robots can we build, it’s what can we do with the ones we’ve built already. The robots that are successful products seem simple and boring, eg. industrial arms, vacuum cleaners, cars. But when applied to the right problem, even simple robots are transformative. The first successful consumer robot was of course iRobot’s Roomba vacuum cleaner with more than 7 million sold worldwide. But the biggest acquisition of a robotics company was Amazon buying Kiva in March 2012 for $775 million.

Kiva’s system relies on small orange turtle like robots that move shelves around in warehouses. The brains are largely on servers. The robots aren’t ‘cool or exciting’. They are barely even robots. But they solve the problem that sank WebVan, one of the most spectacular e-commerce failures. You can only do half your e-commerce in the cloud. Somewhere real products have to be shipped to real places.

Kiva founder Mick Mountz is an MIT engineer who worked at WebVan. “We decided products that could walk and talk on their own would be the best way to solve the problem,” he laughs. [4]

Think of Kiva bots as the hands and feet of the Cloud.  They are not autonomous Star-Trek-like agents, but are wirelessly connected to and controlled by the Cloud in real-time. [5]

Amazon, like WebVan, has to ship product. Reportedly, phsyical order fulfilment cost nearly 9 percent of Amazon’s $40 billion global revenues. This is a big enough pain point for some companies to be willing to trial the Kiva System in a few locations, especially smaller retailers, like Staples in 2004, who faced increasing competition in cloud commerce.

Kiva’s robots today are processing millions of orders a year in retailers’ warehouses across the United States, the UK, and Europe, quietly driving Kiva’s startling 80 percent annual growth. On the distant horizon is a plan to bring Kiva’s approach to the manufacturing sector. [6]

Jeff Bezos from Amazon is also investing heavily in Heartland Robotics. Brooks has a vision of transforming the workplace by making robots that can be safely worked with, shifting robots out of sterile, safe factory environments and bringing them alongside people. His analogy is with mainframe computer systems in the 1960s to the personal computer of the 1980s.

“Originally ordinary people couldn’t touch computers. Now they can. What if ordinary people could touch robots?” [7]

The future of robotics is exciting, but we’ve barely begun to fully explore the potential of the simple robots we already have.

next post: Increasing modularity & commonality plus decreasing component costs

1. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/10/business/fannie-mae-profit-signals-a-stabilizing-housing-market.html
2. http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/04/29/myth-of-decline-u-s-is-stronger-and-faster-than-anywhere-else.html
3. http://news.cnet.com/8301-11386_3-57391570-76/robots-still-lack-the-human-touch/
4. http://www.forbes.com/sites/markpmills/2012/03/23/amazons-kiva-robot-acquisition-is-bullish-for-both-amazon-and-american-jobs/
5. http://www.alumni.hbs.edu/bulletin/2012/march/innovation-mountz.html
6. http://www.alumni.hbs.edu/bulletin/2012/march/innovation-mountz.html
7. http://www.boston.com/business/technology/innoeco/2012/05/heartland_robotics_will_unveil.html

1. Disruptions to funding models
2. Broader financial climate
3. Maturity of robotics technology (backlog of product)
4. Increasing modularity vs commonality
5. Decreasing cost of sensors (and other components – via democratizing/sanguine)
6. Object recognition no longer robotics problem (same as next?)
7. Internet of Things
8. Changing manufacturing/prototyping environment
9. Overall internet/software eats the world (or is this also object recognition?)
10. Lean Startup Methodology
11. Popular discussion = zeitgeist

this list is subject to change

1. Disruption to Funding Models

The Kauffman Foundation’s recent report on 20 years of investment in VC funding called it ‘a triumph of hope over experience’.

Venture capital (VC) has delivered poor returns for more than a decade. VC returns haven’t significantly outperformed the public market since the late 1990s, and, since 1997, less cash has been returned to investors than has been invested in VC. Speculation among industry insiders is that the VC model is broken, despite occasional high-profile successes like Groupon, Zynga, LinkedIn, and Facebook in recent years. [1]

Dave McClure from 500 Startups is (in)famous for promoting a ‘spray and pray’ funding style which focusses on making many small early investments, testing often and only keeping the best. However he recently declared that VC’s should be ashamed.

“Because we SUCK at EXACTLY the thing we’re supposed to help entrepreneurs do — build BIG, SCALABLE companies.” [2]

The lean startup mantra of ‘fail fast and cheap, challenge all assumptions’ is shaking up the orthodox investment models. This goes hand in hand with the crowdfunding movement which connects product ideas directly to customers, outsourcing the early stage production funding eg. KickStarter, IndieGoGo, Wefunder, CircleUp, etc.

Crowdfunding sites are springing up like mushrooms since the JOBS (Jumpstart our Business Startup) Act was signed by President Obama on April 5, 2012. Although the details still need some work before the process starts in earnest.

 As the President said at today’s signing, “this bill is a potential gamechanger” for America’s entrepreneurs. For the first time, Americans will be able to go online and invest in small businesses and entrepreneurs. Not only will this help small businesses and high-growth enterprises raise capital more efficiently, but it will also allow small and young firms to expand and hire faster.  [3]

next post: Broader Financial Climate & Maturity of Robotics Technology

1. http://www.kauffman.org/uploadedFiles/vc-enemy-is-us-report.pdf
2. http://500.co/2012/04/06/scaling-venture-capital/
3. http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2012/04/05/jobs-act-encouraging-startups-supporting-small-businesses

The real story of our success was the roboticists, our robot mentors or demo coaches. These amazing people came early and stayed till midnight, even when their robot platform wasn’t being used [Elad Inbar of The Robot App Store and Ted Larson of Oddwerx]. Then they went home and built more robots to bring in [Tully Foote - Willow Garage]. They pulled apart their own personal robots [Melonee Wise - Willow Garage] to provide parts for teams. They flew in from far away [Ross Ingram and Adam Wilson - Sphero, Harsha Kikkeri and Jay Beavers - Microsoft Robotics] bringing boxes of robots and giving them away as prizes to the winning teams. But mainly they gave away their time, smiling. We were all inspired by the robot track, but it was the roboticists that really did it.

Harsha Kikkeri, robot mentor from Microsoft Robotics at MEGA Startup Weekend, April 13-15, 2012.
Photo/image credit: Erica Kawamoto Hsu

Rodney Brooks, from iRobot, recently said that the real question for robotics now isn’t “what CAN a robot do?”, it’s “what SHOULD a robot do?” Startup Weekend is a wonderful opportunity to test assumptions about what a robot should do, to do it rapidly, to iterate and to validate. While we had some very good robot businesses, the winning team, “Eyes on Demand” had an incredibly strong value proposition, achievable cheaply with available technology.

The team had a strong connection to a section of the community, people with impaired vision, and the team understood the real pain points, eg. reading mail or food labels. They started with a clear problem and then looked to available affordable technology and put things together in a new way. This democratization of robotics technology, as seen in the DIY drone community, is something we’ve all been waiting for.

Although world domination through robots and startups is definitely on our agenda, Robot Launch Pad is a small group in the Silicon Valley area just starting to grow. We were both touched and surprised to be contacted recently by Paul Doyle, Head of ACCESS, Research and Development at Hereward College, UK. Paul wanted us to hurry up and get people making real affordable robots for people with disabilities. He foresaw the possibilities of rapid prototyping and the startup movement.

“Hereward College in the UK supports many students with physical sensory and cognitive impairments. For years we have been awaiting the arrival of the practical assistive robot as many of our students could and should benefit from their availability.

What we have currently is a number of high cost ubiquitous machines, with little or no practical application in the real world.”

Paul wanted to know if there were any DIY robots coming in the future and to inspire us to build robot solutions based on affordable technology, easy for consumers and staff to work with and replace. Of course we still need sophisticated robots, but MEGA Startup Weekend proves that we can iterate around existing technologies, putting people centered design at the heart of robots. I was delighted to tell Paul about “Eyes on Demand”. He was thrilled too, and his whole college wants to be first customers. I think there’ll be quite a queue!

MEGA Startup Weekend was a MEGA success for robotics. And created a new hybrid event, a mashup of startup weekend and hackathon, with arguably the best of both worlds. I know it’s wrong but I think I got Shacked Up this weekend.

All the pitches and Q&As are on the Robot Launch Pad youtube channel, thanks to Michael Harries. (UPDATED WITH ALL 05/15/2012)

Douglas Crets, Developer Evangelist at Microsoft BizSpark, has written a great post for Startup America “Profound, Profane and Perfectly Capable” which also links to the Facebook page for photos. Crets also posted “BikiniGate” which lifted the lid on both the worst and the best of ‘startuplandia’, with links to posts from Chris Yeh, investor and one of the judges and Adria Richards, Developer Evangelist for SendGrid.

Yeh’s post describes why MEGA Startup Weekend inspired him to speak out about gender imbalance and how he felt that Mega Startup Weekend was an example of getting gender right, which is rare enough in Silicon Valley to inspire him to comment on an occasion that was inappropriate. Richard’s post explains why that is such a big deal.

Techcocktail has a write up of MEGA… with robots and without. More photos on Flickr. (great photostream from Erica Kawamoto Hsu) And finally, the winners!

• Robots: “Eyes on Demand” on-demand, remote human assistance for visually impaired people, extending into sensors for augmented senses in future
• Gaming: “Stinky DaVinci”  art sharing app
• Mobile: “Predict Gaze”  revolutionizing mobile survey and analytics through gaze tracking on mobile devices