President: Sabine Haeurt          

Founded: 2012

HQ:  Switzerland

Robohub is an online platform and non-profit that brings together leading communicators in robotics research, start-ups, business, and education from around the world, focused on connecting the robotics community to the public. It can be difficult for the public to find free, high-quality information about robotics. At Robohub, we enable roboticists to share their stories in their own words by providing them with a social media platform and editorial guidance. This means that our readers get to learn about the latest research and business news, events and opinions, directly from the experts.

Since 2012, Robohub and its international community of volunteers have published over 300 Robohub Podcasts, 7000 blog posts, videos and more, reaching 1M pageviews every year, and more than 30k followers on social media. You can follow robohub on Twitter at @robohub.

Yesterday, Onalytica released a report “Robotics: Top 100 Influencers and their Brands” that analysed interactions between robotics influencers and brands on Twitter over a period of 90 days. What they found was pretty interesting:

“… we analysed over 551K tweets mentioning the keywords: “Robotics OR Robotic from 18th September – 18th November 2016. We then identified the top 100 most influential brands and individuals leading the discussion on Twitter. What we discovered was a very engaged community, with much discussion between individuals and brands.”

We’re proud to say that Robohub, as a brand, was ranked #10 out of 100. That makes us one of the top robotics-focused blogs. Not too shabby for a non-profit organisation that started 4 years ago!

Source: Onalytica

Contributing Robohub experts were also on the list, namely: Ryan Calo, Andra Keay, Sammy Payne, Sabine Hauert, and Hallie Siegel.

You can download the full report for free here, which describes their PageRank methodology, data, and rankings.

Dear Readers,
For #GivingTueday, we would like to ask you, our loyal readers, to consider donating to Robohub. From the beginning, our mission has been to help demystify robotics by hearing straight from the experts. Robohub isn’t like most news websites. We’re a community. We’re a forum. Much of our content is written directly by the experts in academia, businesses, and industry. That means you get to learn about the latest research and business news, events and opinions, directly from the experts, unfiltered, with no media bias. Our goal is to keep you engaged and interested in robotics that may not necessarily be covered by top news agencies.

We mostly ‘survive’ on donations and grants, not running ads or spam, and we want to keep it that way. As a non-profit, all revenue goes towards maintaining our website, and our small team consisting of one full-time managing editor, one part-time science communication intern, and technical support. Everyone else generously volunteers their time when they are able.

Please donate to keep Robohub free and help us grow and improve our services. There’s still much to be discussed in robotics, we feel we’re just getting started! Thank you.

You can support us by donating here.

The wrench 3D-printed by the Additive Manufacturing Facility (AMF) aboard the International Space Station has the name of toolmaker Kobalt emblazoned on its side — the result of a partnership between Made In Space, which built the AMF, and home-improvement store Lowe’s.
Credit: NASA/Made In Space/Lowe’s

Investing in robots; China’s robotics acquisitions; robot designed to hurt; exoskeleton for kids; Russian bot escapes testing ground; 3-DP in space and more. Find out what’s happening in our robotics universe this week.

Want to invest in the robot uprising? Here’s how (WIRED)

An interesting new option for those thinking about investing in robotics was revealed this week.

Dubbed Motif, it’s “a concept-driven trading platform that creates intelligently weighted baskets of up to 30 stocks or exchange-traded funds — called ‘motifs’ — that you can buy into for $9.95.”

Motif’s major innovation is letting individuals own fractions of shares in company, something that’s typically not possible when buying stocks on the open market. Users can invest, say, $300 in a motif containing a weighted basket of 30 different company stocks, each of whose share prices could be tens or hundreds of dollars, and constantly fluctuating. Motif’s technology makes it possible for individuals to immediately own the underlying fractions of shares contained in the basket at the point of purchase.

Motif also gives individual investors fractional ownership on single shares, allowing a user with only $300 to still buy a piece of Alphabet (formerly known as Google) even though a single share is currently trading at more than $700.

Walia wouldn’t go into details about how exactly this works as he says there are several other startups interested in cloning his technology. What he will say is that Motif doesn’t aggregate trades. “We have a lot of patents”, he adds.

China continues to invest in European Industrial Automation (Robotics Business Review)

With so many Chinese firms investing in Western robotics companies, this article offers a timely breakdown of the most important recent acquisitions and offers.

AGIC Capital is spending €100 million ($113 million) to acquire a majority stake in Gimatic SRL, which makes end-of-arm tools for robotic arms.

Italy-based Gimatic supplies actuators, grippers, sensors, and plastic injection-molding equipment to the automotive, electronics, food, and pharmaceuticals industries. It has more than 100 patents and facilities worldwide, and its revenue has grown by more than 20 percent over the past three years.

This robot intentionally hurts people—and makes them bleed (Fast Company)

Alexander Reben, a Berkeley, California-based roboticists and artist, has created a tabletop robot that’s designed to hurt people –and generate a conversation among roboticists, ethicists, lawyers, and other stakeholders about the challenges robotics could present in the future.

Before you bar your doors and windows, let’s define the terms: The harm caused by Reben’s robot is nothing more than a pinprick, albeit one delivered at high speed, causing the maximum amount of pain a small needle can inflict on a fingertip.

And interestingly, he designed the machine so that injury is inflicted randomly. Sometimes the robot strikes. Sometimes it doesn’t. Even Reben, when he exposes his fingertip to danger, has no idea if he’ll end up shedding blood or not.

“No one has actually made a robot that was built to intentionally hurt and injure someone,” Reben claims in a giant room on the top floor of the beautiful Victorian mansion where he lives and works as a member of Stochastic Labs, a Berkeley arts, technology, and science events incubator. “I wanted to make a robot that does this that actually exists… It was important to take it out of the thought experiment realm into reality, because once something exists in the world, you have to confront it. It becomes more urgent. You can’t just pontificate about it.”

The headline on this story is slightly misleading, inasmuch as robots do not possess ‘intentionality’ in any human sense. Robots act in accordance with their design and they follow instructions.

If you’ve been following our ISO/TS 15066 coverage, you’ll have noticed that the new ISO document incorporates the results of a University of Mainz study that developed force and pressure limits for 29 body areas. Designed to minimize harm should any contact occur between a human and a robot in a collaborative environment, the study helps designers and integrators to perform risk assessments for collaborative robot systems.

ISO/TS 15066 was six years in the making and received input from leading robotics experts from all over the world. So, while the artist’s project is interesting and cool, the conversation around safety issues has been going on for quite some time among roboticists.

Spanish researchers design child exoskeleton (R&D)

Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is a genetic condition defined by muscle weakness, which often makes locomotion difficult for sufferers.

The good news is that the Spanish National Research Council and spin-off company Marsi Bionics have created an exoskeleton for children with SMA aged between ages three and 14. Marsi’s intelligent exoskeleton is currently in the preclinical phase, but if it’s successful, researchers hope that as well as helping with locomotion, the device could stave off secondary effects from the condition, such as scoliosis.

The exoskeleton fits around the child’s legs and torso, and consists of five motors in each leg that act as muscles, providing strength for the child to stand upright and walk.

“Our model includes intelligent joints which alter the brace’s rigidity automatically and adapt to the symptoms of each individual child … whenever required,” said Elena Garcia, part of the research council’s Automatics and Robotics Centre, in a statement.

Additionally, the apparatus is highly sensitive to a child’s intended movement and acts accordingly. It’s powered by a battery with a five-hour lifespan.

“The number one drawback in developing this type of pediatric exoskeleton is that the symptoms of neuromuscular illnesses—such as spinal muscular atrophy—change over time, as much in the articulation as in the body,” Garcia said in a statement. “That’s why it’s fundamental to have an exoskeleton capable of independently adapting to these changes.”

Robot escapes testing grounds in Russia (Sputnik)

Oh boy.

Robots be rolling. I think somebody’s trolling.

Reports emerged this week of a Russian robot ‘escaping’ testing grounds and finding its way onto the street, where its batteries went flat and the robot held up traffic until the police arrived. What do you think? Real or a publicity stunt?

The escape occurred due to a gate left open by an engineer, local media said. The robot had moved some 50 meters (160 feet) by the time its charge ran out, according to reports.

The loss was noticed almost an hour later, by which time the robot caused a minor traffic jam and gathered a crowd, with the police eventually arriving.

Space Station’s commercial 3D printer makes its 1st tool (Space.com)

The machine, known as the Additive Manufacturing Facility (AMF), was installed aboard the International Space Station (ISS) in late April. And last week, it printed out its first tool — a wrench that astronauts can use to do maintenance work aboard the orbiting lab.

The wrench was made with a special off-Earth feature — a fastening clip that should help astronauts keep track of the tool in zero g.

The AMF was built by California-based company Made In Space, which also constructed the only other 3D printer ever sent to space.

And Finally…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcMoDHbWYbk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imvL5bsk87M

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMzVJ8g6fMI

Infographic: The making of a collaborative robot (Robohub via National Science Foundation)

How will bots make money? Here are 7 business models (Venture Beat)
How To Buy A Drone [Infographic] (Drone360)
First Surgical Robot from Secretive Startup Auris Cleared for Use (IEEE Spectrum)
Jibo “social” robot to ship in October (Liliputing)
Pepper the robot begins work in Belgian hospitals (Daily Mail)
British, Indian scientists to use underwater robots in study of subcontinent’s monsoon (Japan Times) 

Are you planning to crowdfund your robot startup? Need help spreading the word?

At Robohub, we love robot startups and we have a history of helping out.

We know it can be tricky to gather the necessary klout and raise enough interest to reach your funding objectives. With our in-depth experience in science communication and our reader base of 50K monthly visitors who are passionate about robotics, Robohub is ideally positioned to mentor you on running a successful crowd funding campaign, and to help you promote it through our website, our newsletters and our social media channels.

So how can we help? Robohub has partnered with Indiegogo, one of the leaders in hardware crowdfunding, to launch a dedicated Robohub Partner Page for robotics.

We’re pretty picky about who we feature on our partner page, and we’ll be looking for high-quality startups with awesome products. And that’s good, because joining our partnership gives you instant credibility and backing by robotics experts.

If you make the cut, we’ll connect you to a dedicated robotics mentor at Indiegogo for a one-on-one meeting, we’ll guide you through writing a blog post about your campaign for Robohub, and we’ll feature your campaign on our front page. We’ll also share the campaign with our 3K followers on Twitter and 600K followers on Google+.

In addition, startups that crowdfund through our partner page will receive a 10% discount on their campaign from Indiegogo.

Since we are a non-profit run primarily by volunteers and we’ll be helping you with science communication and dissemination services, we’re asking that campaigns donate half their cost savings back to Robohub. In the end, you’ll get a 5% cut, and we will use the other 5% towards our operation costs. This comes down to giving us a $200 donation if your campaign raises $100,000 – not bad! And you’ll pay $200 less in fees than if you ran your own independent Indiegogo campaign. Sounds like good karma all around!

Interested in joining our Indiegogo Partner Page? Send a description of your campaign to: crowdfunding@robohub.org.

Already launched your Indiegogo campaign? It’s not too late to partner with us. Just send a link to your existing campaign to: crowdfunding@robohub.org.

If you liked this article, you may also be interested in:

• Robot Launch 2014
• Robojobs
• ROBOTS: From imagination to market
• Robohub calls and events calendar

See all the latest robotics news on Robohub, or sign up for our weekly newsletter.