Though recent advances in design, fabrication, and programming technologies promise to enable rapid digital manufacturing of functional robotic systems, many challenges need to be addressed to realize the dream of fully functional print-on-demand robots. The creation of robotic systems requires expertise in diverse areas, including mechanics, electronics, software, and control theory. Contributions from all of these 
fields will be required to automate 
or greatly simplify direct robot fabrication.

This paper won the IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine Best Paper Award at ICRA 2016.

The robotics community have created a series of video tributes that showcase some of the contributions to ICRA, the largest conference in the field of robotics and automation. Episode two features robots that iron garments, use spoons and spatulas to scoop up objects, and, of course, move rubber duckies!

Stay tuned for episode three: Incredible machines

The ICRA 2016 conference in Stockholm, Sweden, 16-21 May, is approaching! This year, the robotics community reflected on the strong and natural relationship between robots and rubber duckies. Vote for your favourite poem!

Transcript below

In this episode, Andrew Vaziri speaks with Curtis Carson, Head of Research and Technology in Industrial Strategy and Systems at Airbus. They speak about the Airbus Shopfloor Challenge to be held at ICRA 2016, and discuss the need for a new generation of industrial robots for aircraft manufacturing.