Tony Prescott, Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience and Director of the Sheffield Center of Robotics believes that the medical industry could be at the forefront of changing the public perception of robotics. Why?  Because this is an industry that already understands how paramount it is, when dealing with the elderly, disabled and ill, to provide a service that is helpful, friendly and nonthreatening.

RE.WORK’s Future Robotics Forum – which took place in London on Tuesday – was an opportunity to hear the stories of key influencers and developers of transformative robotic services and devices, and to learn about the challenges involved in commercialisation.

Our 3D-printed prosthetic hand project has made the global finals of Intel’s Make it Wearable competition!  Open Bionics came out of the Open Hand Project, where we developed a 3D printed robotic hand that would cost amputees less than $1,000.

The TiddlyBot, which just launched on Kickstarter, has been developed to help young people have fun and learn about robotics and programming.

More than 75 startups from 19 countries entered the Robot Launch global startup competition, with robotics innovations ranging from duct and floor cleaning robots, to educational robots, welding robots and even toy robot fish. Meet the winners.

The folks at Avidbots — who won an honourable mention in the Robot Launch 2014 competition — are developing ROS-based commercial cleaning robots.

Watch the live stream from the 2014 Robot Launch Finals, starting today May 20 at 10AM Pacific. From over 60 entries from all around the world, our judges have narrowed it down to six finalists: DoBots, Duct Inspection Robot from Robosoft Systems, Leka, Odd I/O, Robotic Technologies of Tennessee and Tandemech Engineering. These startups will make an expanded 5 minute pitch and do a live Q&A session with our judges, who will decide the ultimate winner. Follow on Twitter #RobotLaunch. Don’t forget that you can still vote for your Crowd Favorite until 10AM Pacific!

It’s just a few days until the RobotLaunch Finals on May 20, where our remaining six teams will battle it out in front of a live panel of judges. So we thought we’d recap some of the expert advice we gleaned from the speakers at the Robots2014 event at MIT last month to help our startups prepare. Co-organized with Swissnex Boston, the event brought researchers, startups and VCs together under one roof. Here are some of our favourite sound bites from the ‘Imagination to Market’ event:

Mirobot is a robotics kit that’s designed to get kids more interested in technology, engineering and programming. Children solder and build it themselves, and then can use a drag-and-drop programming tool in their browser to get the robot to draw shapes and patterns.

Today we announce the six finalists from Robot Launch who will be presenting their pitches online live to a panel of expert judges on Tuesday May 20 at 10am PDT. Join us then to see who takes home the ultimate champion crown! The six highest scoring startups from our Top 30 are (alphabetically): DoBots, Duct Inspection Robot, Leka, Odd I/O, Robotic Technologies of Tennessee and Tandemech Engineering. In the meantime, Robohub readers can also vote right here for the “People’s Choice” startup from the Robot Launch competition.

For the next three weeks, Robohub readers can vote for the “People’s Choice” startup from the Robot Launch competition. Each week, we’re going to publish 10 videos from our Top 30 and during our live final on May 20, we’ll announce the ultimate “People’s Choice” winner. Four startups are moving through from last week’s round; Jessiko Robot Fish, Axon Robotics, GimBall and Duct Inspection Robot. Only 4 spots left! This week’s videos (in alphabetic order) are:

For the next three weeks, Robohub readers can vote for the “People’s Choice” startup from the Robot Launch competition. Each week, we’re going to publish 10 videos from our Top 30, and during our live final on May 20, we’ll announce the ultimate “People’s Choice” winner. Four startups moving through from last week’s round are; 3DOF Robotics, Jammster, RoboTar and Tandemech Engineering. Only 6 spots left! This week’s videos (in alphabetic order) are:

For the next three weeks, Robohub readers can vote for the “People’s Choice” startup from the Robot Launch competition. Each week, we’re going to publish 10 videos from our Top 30 and during our live final on May 20, you can vote for the ultimate “People’s Choice” winner. This week’s videos (in alphabetic order) are:

We had a some amazing entries in Robot Launch 2014 across a wide range of fields, and not all of our favorites made it through to the Top 30. So we’d like to share some highlights of the First Round robot startups.

Are you ready to find out who the semifinalists are in our first Robot Launch global startup competition for robotics? With 76 applications from 19 different countries, and entries covering industrial, service and consumer robotics, it’s clear that robotics is entering a period of strong growth. The judges did not have an easy job, but here are the TOP 30!