Boston Dynamics' BigDog Video Spawns Parodies

Boston Dynamics founder Marc Raibert sent an e-mail last month offering a sneak peek of a new video of the company's gasoline-powered robotic dog, BigDog. The 'bot was shown climbing in snow, and slipping on an icy parking lot -- before recovering its balance.

Then, earlier this month, after getting the proper approvals from DARPA (the Dept. of Defense agency funding the project), the BigDog video appeared on YouTube. It has since amassed almost four million views. Here it is:



Now, parodies and mash-ups are cropping up everywhere... a sure sign that Boston Dynamics, headquartered in Waltham, has achieved not just technical success (they call BigDog "the most advanced quadruped robot on earth"), but viral video success.

Two of the better ones:

What to Do This Weekend With Your Kids, Woz, Bob Metcalfe, and Blue Man Group

On Friday or Saturday, take them to the FIRST regional robotics competition in Boston. (Other regionals around the country are listed here.)

If you haven't seen a FIRST robotics competition (created originally by MIT prof Woodie Flowers and inventor Dean Kamen), it'll blow your mind...and perhaps cause your offspring to become obsessed.

From the press release:

BOSTON– March 26, 2008 – Over 1,000 area high school students will be competing in Boston’s largest robotics competition this week. The Boston FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Robotics Competition will take place at Boston University’s Agganis Arena Friday through Saturday, March 28-29, 2008. The event is free and open to the public.

Blue Man Group, the multimedia entertainment phenomenon, will perform during the opening ceremony for the competition’s final matches: Saturday, March 29, 2008 at 12:45PM. This special live appearance will showcase Blue Man Group’s signature music and excitement.

Over fifty teams spent six weeks designing and building robots to accomplish specific tasks outlined in this year’s game, “FIRST Overdrive.” The teams will compete for honors that recognize robot design excellence, competitive play, sportsmanship and high-impact partnerships between schools, businesses and communities.

The Boston FIRST Regional (http://www.bostonfirst.org) brings together student teams from across the region in an atmosphere that is described as “rock concert meets the Super Bowl mixed with science and technology.”

Students competing in the competition will be able to interact with a number of the nation’s leading technology pioneers. This year’s judges include Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, iRobot co-founder Colin Angle and Ethernet inventor Bob Metcalfe of Polaris Ventures.

Kiva Systems, and the Region's Robotics Cluster

Yesterday's Boston Globe column focused on the warehouse automation solution developed by a start-up called Kiva Systems. It's being used by companies like Staples, Walgreens, and Zappos.com, and it relies on beefy orange robots -- about the site of ottomans -- to move around racks of merchandise. Interestingly, Kiva's founder came east to start the company, after working at Apple and WebVan in Silicon Valley.

Here's the video I shot at Kiva's 'demonstration warehouse' last week:



In doing the story, I discovered that the region's most significant robotics industry networking group seems to be the robotics cluster that the Mass Technology Leadership Council has created. While the MassTLC doesn't have a comprehensive list of all the robotics companies in the state, they have produced a
snazzy brochure (PDF) touting the benefits of being headquartered here.

Aside from Kiva, here's the list of the ten New England robotics companies I heard mentioned most often during my research (ranked in no particular order):

- iRobot: publicly-traded maker of bots for pool cleaning and bomb disposal. Co-founded by MIT prof Rodney Brooks, and Colin Angle and Helen Greiner, his former students.

- Foster-Miller: Waltham developer of robots for reconnaissance and hazmat disposal.

- Boston Dynamics: maker of walking, animal-like robots for the military. Founded by MIT "Leg Lab" legend Marc Raibert.

- Bluefin Robotics: Cambridge, Mass. designer of robots that aren't afraid to get wet.

- Hydroid: another manufacturer of underwater bots, in Pocasset, Mass.

- North End Technologies: stealthy NH robotics company funded by Castile Ventures. Founded by iRobot alums.

- Q Robotics: another quiet Mass. company founded by Paul Sandin and Joe Jones, creators of iRobot's Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner.

- Smart Robots: Dalton, Mass. maker of mobile robotic platforms for education and application development.

- MobileRobots, formerly ActivMedia Robotics: NH company focused on "research and university robots."

- Black i Robotics: Tyngsboro, Mass. maker of rugged six-wheeled robots.

Robot demos and panels at WPI, next week

From Worcester Polytechnic Institute:

As of fall 2007, WPI is offering the nation's first bachelor's degree program in robotics engineering. The new major grows out of an increasing demand for robots and robotics systems to meet national needs in areas such as defense and security, elder care, automation of household tasks, customized manufacturing, and interactive entertainment, and also responds to the escalating interest in robots among young people. This major, which crosses academic boundaries, is designed to prepare a new breed of engineer with the skills and imagination to develop intelligent machines that go beyond today's reality.

To mark the launch of the program, they're holding a one-day symposium this coming Tuesday, which features speakers like Dean Kamen of DEKA and Helen Greiner or iRobot. They'll also have robot demos -- and the registration price is cheap: $20.

Top Innovators Under 35: From Technology Review

Technology Review, MIT's alumni newsletter, put out its annual list of the most interesting innovators under 35 today.

Who's on the list from New England?

- David Berry is their "Innovator of the Year." Berry is a partner at Flagship Ventures in Cambridge who earned an MD from Harvard and a PhD from MIT; his most recent work was on engineering molecules to produce biofuels, work which serves as the foundation for the California start-up LS9.

- Chris Loose from Stericoat, which won MIT's 100K business plan competition in 2006.

- Mehmet Yanik of MIT

- Kristala Jones Prather of MIT

- Ali Khademhosseini of the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology

- Adam Cohen of Harvard

- Ivan Kristic of One Laptop Per Child, who develops anti-virus software

- Roboticist Josh Bongard from the University of Vermont

- Anna Lysyanskaya of Brown, who works in online privacy

Robo-Dog Fetches $10 Million in Funding

Boston Dynamics is getting $10 million from DARPA to continue development of BigDog, a robotic dog that may eventually be able to carry equipment for soldiers or run ahead to survey an area (but not fetch a paper, since the robo-dog has no head or jaws.) So far, according to Boston Dynamics, "BigDog has trotted at 3.3 mph, climbed a 35 degree slope and carried a 120 lb load." (In 2004, I wrote about BigDog, along with other robots based on animal models, for the NY Times.)

Here's a video clip of BigDog in action...unbelievably cool when someone tries to knock it over and it regains its footing without falling.

Times Magazine Piece on Sociable Robots

This Times Sunday Magazine piece, which ran yesterday, focuses almost exclusively on "sociable robots" being developed at MIT...and includes some cool video demonstrations. From the story:

Bill Gates has said that personal robotics today is at the stage that personal computers were in the mid-1970s. Thirty years ago, few people guessed that the bulky, slow computers being used by a handful of businesses would by 2007 insinuate themselves into our lives via applications like Google, e-mail, YouTube, Skype and MySpace. In much the same way, the robots being built today, still unwieldy and temperamental even in the most capable hands, probably offer only hints of the way we might be using robots in another 30 years.

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.)