Kicking It With Robots – IEEE Spectrum

In July of 2010, I traveled to Singapore to handle my then 6-year-old son Henry whereas his mom attended an educational convention. But I used to be actually there for the robots.

IEEE Spectrum’s digital product supervisor, Erico Guizzo, was our robotics editor on the time. We had simply mixed forces with robotic blogger par excellence and now Spectrum senior editor Evan “BotJunkie” Ackerman to supercharge our first and most profitable weblog, Automaton. When I instructed Guizzo I used to be going to be in Singapore, he instructed me that RoboCup, a global robotic soccer competitors, was happening on the identical time. So after all we wrangled a press move for me and my plus one.

I introduced Henry and a video digital camera to seize the bustling bots and their handlers. Guizzo instructed me that movies of robotsflailing at balls would do boffo Web visitors, so I used to be as excited as my first grader (okay, extra excited) to be in a conference middle crammed with robots and groups of engineers toiling away on the sidelines to make changes and repairs and discuss with one another and us about their creations.

Even higher than the massive humanoid robots lurching round like zombies and the smaller, wheeled bots scurrying backward and forward had been the engineers who tended to them. They exuded the sort of pleasure that comes with working collectively to construct cool stuff, and it was infectious. On web page 40 of this situation, Peter Stone—previous president of the RoboCup Federation, professor within the laptop science division of the University of Texas at Austin, and government director of Sony AI America—captures a few of that unbridled enthusiasm and provides us the historical past of the occasion. To associate with his story, we embrace motion photographs taken at varied RoboCups all through the 25 years of the occasion. You can try this yr’s RoboCup competitions happening 6–9 July on the University of Bordeaux, in Nouvelle-Aquitaine, France.

Earlier in 2010, the identical yr as my first RoboCup, Apple launched what was partly pitched as the way forward for magazines: the iPad. Guizzo and images director Randi Klett immediately grokked the chances of the format and the brand new kind of tactile interactivity (ah, the swipe!) to showcase the best robots they may discover. Channeling the identical spirit I skilled in Singapore, Guizzo, Klett, and app-maker Tendigi launched the Robots app in 2012. It was an prompt hit, with greater than 1.3 million downloads.

To attain new audiences on different units past the iOS platform, we ported Robots from appworld to the Web. With the assistance of founding sponsors—together with the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society and Walt Disney Imagineering—and the help of the IEEE Foundation, the Robots web site launched in 2018 and rapidly discovered a following amongst STEM educators, college students, roboticists, and most people.

By 2022 it was clear that the location, whose primary design had not modified in years, wanted a reboot. We gave it a brand new identify and URL to make it straightforward for extra individuals to search out: RobotsGuide.com. And with the assistance of Pentagram, the design consultancy that reimagined Spectrum’s print journal and web site in 2021, in collaboration with Standard, a design and know-how studio, we constructed the location as a contemporary, absolutely responsive Web app.

Featuring nearly 250 of the world’s most superior and influential robots, a whole bunch of images and movies, detailed specs, 360-degree interactives, video games, consumer scores, instructional content material, and robotic information from all over the world, the Robots Guide helps everybody be taught extra about robotics.

So seize your cellphone, pill, or laptop and delve into the wondrous world of robots. It shall be time—doubtless numerous it—effectively spent.