Robot Block Party Attracts Hundreds

Robots, the unsung heroes of our daily lives, came out for a party at Stanford Thursday. Celebrating National Robotics Week, the second annual Robot Block Party was organized by the Stanford’s Center for Internet and Society.

The purpose of the event was to draw attention to what local companies are doing in the growing field of robotics. According to Erin Rapacki, a product marketing manager at Adept MobileRobots, the party is “kid-friendly, so we can get them interested.” She said the event was spearheaded by Silicon Valley Robotics, an industry consortium.

Indeed, Stanford’s Volkswagen Automotive Innovation Lab was swarming with children of all ages who had the opportunity to put robots through their paces and declare their performance “cool.”

On display was a robot car developed by Stanford in collaboration with Volkswagen, Bosch and Google. It uses three GPS systems and 64 laser beams rotating from a cylinder on its roof to record points in three dimensions and make sure the car will keep to the center of a freeway lane.

Jesse Levinson, a Ph.D. student in artificial intelligence, is the project leader and one of its 15 software designers. His prediction is that “We’ll being seeing robot cars on freeways in five years.” He expects it will be more like 10 years before the robot car will be able to maneuver surface streets. “Freeway driving is more structured than driving on surface streets,” he said.

Adept Technologies of Pleasanton displayed an arm robot for the assembly, handling and packaging aspects of manufacturing, as well as a mobile robot for research. A poster at their display table reminded visitors that “the future of robotics was born in America” Another message on the poster: “Robotics improves our quality of life and makes a stronger, safer and healthier America.” 

For home use, Mountain View-based Neato Robotics demonstrated its All-Floor Vacuum System. The system combines laser vision with mapping so the robot methodically outlines an area to clean and moves back and forth removing all kinds of dirt and debris.

In addition to commercial developers of robots, the party included several amateur groups. One of them, the Homebrew Robotics Club, invited to children to wave their arms while a robot mimicked their motions.

Wizbots of Belmont offers after-school classes, summer camps, weekend workshops, community events and birthday parties to to teach kids about creativity, teamwork, building, product design and empathy.

There’s also a competitive aspect to robot building. The Robotics Club at Prospect High School in Saratoga was one of 52 teams in California to build a robot in six weeks after receiving the design guidelines. Mack Mackenzie, the club’s president, said winning teams compete in St. Louis for a national championship. “There’s always rivalry between the Massachusetts and California teams,” he said.