Three iRobot Spin-Offs: Harvest, Heartland, North End

Sunday's column focused on the robotics cluster in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, including new companies like Harvest Automation, North End Technologies, and Rod Brooks' new venture, Heartland Robotics. All of them involve former iRobot employees and execs as founders, so I consider them the spawn of iRobot.

Here's the video - a demo of Harvest Automation's prototype greenhouse robots, with Harvest CEO Charles Grinnell.



Two days after the column ran, Rod Brooks -- one of iRobot's three founders -- officially announced he was stepping away from his role as iRobot's CTO to focus entirely on getting Heartland off the ground; he'll still head a technical advisory board at iRobot and remain on the board of directors.

Xconomy has another piece about Heartland, which deftly doesn't mention that my Globe column broke the news of the company's formation two days earlier...but that's the blogosphere for ya.

Q Robotics: The Wraps Come Off Wednesday Night

I've been waiting just about a year to find out what the heck Q Robotics is up to. (See this post from July 07.) Q is a sort of splinter from the iRobot tree; co-founders Joe Jones and Paul Sandin were both at iRobot previously, where they helped develop the first-gen Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner.

So far, they've been very stealthy. The Web site still says zilch about their focus.

But Joe Jones e-mailed today to let me know that Wednesday night at an MIT Enterprise Forum event, they'll be talking about their focus and strategy, and CEO Charlie Grinnell will show some video of prototype robots in action.

Jones writes via e-mail: "We found an agriculture-related application that meets three prerequisites I see as essential for a successful robot: 1) The robot satisfies is a genuine market need. 2) The task is within reach of current robotic technology. 3) The cost of the robotic system can be competitive with existing non-robotic solutions."

The Groton, MA company is also unveiling a new name: Harvest Automation.

I think that makes them the first Massachusetts company specializing in robotic farmworkers... but correct me if I'm wrong.

How iRobot is Like Intel

TIE-Boston put on a really interesting event last night at the MIT Museum: "Mobile and Sociable Robots: At the Leading Edge of Computing."

Cory Kidd from the Media Lab was there, demoing his robotic weight loss coach, which he's hoping to commercialize once he leaves the Lab. I talked with the CTO of Bluefin Robotics, Christopher Wallsmith, about some of their new underwater 'bots that can glide for long periods of time, or hover in place. (Hiawatha wrote a great piece in the Globe earlier this month that included Bluefin.)

But the thing that struck me as most interesting was Helen Greiner's opening talk. (Helen is the co-founder and chairman of iRobot.) Two things struck me, actually.

First was how authentically iRobot has been living up to its mission statement: Build cool stuff, Deliver great product, Make money, and Have fun. They've shipped 2.5 million of their Roomba robotic vaccuum cleaners thus far.

The second thing was that iRobot is the closest thing Boston has to a Google, an Apple, or an Intel: a company that is so clearly the leader in its field that all the best people want to work there (aside from those who're happier in academia). Helen said iRobot now employs about 200 engineers and researchers. These kinds of "magnet" companies not only attract great people, they also make it clear that the region is a center of gravity for their particular industry -- and they start spinning off start-up companies. Q Robotics, one of the other companies on last night's panel, is just such a spin-off. Q CTO Joe Jones was one of the developers of iRobot's Roomba.

That's pretty cool.

(Photo by Jason Grow / Business Week. Chris Brady took some great photos at tonight's event.)