Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends at IEEE Spectrum robotics. We also post a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months. Please send us your events for inclusion.

Cybathlon Challenges: 02 February 2024, ZURICH, SWITZERLAND

Eurobot Open 2024: 8–11 May 2024, LA ROCHE-SUR-YON, FRANCE

ICRA 2024: 13–17 May 2024, YOKOHAMA, JAPAN

Enjoy today’s videos!

“Sport ist Mord,” as Germans would say. Santa was very ambitious to get fit for Christmas. Unfortunately, he had a minor accident while hiking on Karlsruhe’s Mount Klotz, so Christmas might be cancelled this year. Will our team of robotic reindeer, medics, and physiotherapists find a solution for Santa? We hope all will get their Christmas presents on time! The FZI wishes you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

[ FZI ]

Thanks, Arne!

This holiday season, Santa’s on a mission! Join the festive fun as our beloved Santa teams up with his trusty robot sidekick to spread cheer and put a stop to any researchers who might be up to no good with innocent robots from the Robotic Systems Lab. Let’s find out if there are still some kind-hearted researchers out there!

[ RSL ]

Why do the baubles disappear from the Christmas tree in the University? And what role do our Naos play in this? Let yourselves be surprised and get into the spirit of a Merry Christmas! Humanoids Bonn wishes everyone a beautiful Christmastime!

[ Humanoids Bonn ]

Happy Holidays from the PAL Robotics team. The beginning of 2024 marks the 20th anniversary of our company, and we are excited for all the things to come.

[ PAL Robotics ]

Thanks, Rugile!

As we bid farewell to this year and welcome the prospects of 2024, United Robtics Group is delighted to share our season’s greetings with you through this special video. In this time of festivity and hope, we extend our warmest wishes for a joyful holiday season and a prosperous New Year to everyone around the world.

[ United Robotics Group ]

Thanks, Nicolas!

Even devices from the laboratories of electrical engineers, roboticists and computer scientists can be turned into musical instruments. In their Christmas video, researchers from CTU’s Faculty of Electrical Engineering demonstrate this in an unconventional experiment by “tuning” their technology to the Christmas tune in the English carol We Wish You a Merry Christmas.

[ CTU ]

Thanks, Jiri!

Season’s greetings from euRobotics!

[ euRobotics ]

In this video, we give you an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at how our KUKA Austria team works hard to bring you the ultimate mulled cider experience. From conception to implementation, the LBR iisy Cobot, which combines the precision of a robot with the passion of a human team, provides support. A process that not only delights the taste buds, but also redefines the boundaries of robotics.

[ Kuka ]

Santa Claus is getting ready to come to town, with a little bit of help from his friends at Flexiv! He made a list, checked it twice, and fingers crossed, you’ve been nice!

[ Flexiv ]

Happy Holidays from Yaskawa!

[ Yaskawa ]

We have created an AI robot named CyberRunner whose task is to learn how to play the popular and widely accessible labyrinth marble game. The labyrinth is a game of physical skill whose goal is to steer a marble from a given start point to the end point. In doing so, the player must prevent the ball from falling into any of the holes that are present on the labyrinth board. CyberRunner applies recent advances in model-based reinforcement learning to the physical world and exploits its ability to make informed decisions about potentially successful behaviors by planning real-world decisions and actions into the future. The learning on the real-world labyrinth is conducted in 6.06 hours, comprising 1.2 million time steps at a control rate of 55 samples per second. The AI robot outperforms the previously fastest recorded time, achieved by an extremely skilled human player, by over 6 percent.

In case you’re wondering (like I was), shortcutting across the maze to skip parts of the track is, in fact, cheating. The system (like most humans) did discover shortcuts and had to be explicitly directed not to take them.

[ CyberRunner ]

Thanks, Markus!

Grain Weevil, one of the more interesting single-purpose robots I’ve ever seen, had a busy 2023.

[ Grain Weevil ]

Working in a greenhouse is both strenuous and time-consuming. The picking robot from ETH spin-off Floating Robotics takes on particularly repetitive tasks, thereby alleviating the strain on human pickers. It is currently undergoing testing at Beerstecher AG in Hinwil.

[ ETHZ ]

The compilation showcases final project demos from the master course ‘Introduction to Soft Robotics,’ offered by SDU Soft Robotics during Autumn 2023 at the University of Southern Denmark, Odense Campus. This year’s project theme focused on soft locomotion. Each team was tasked with designing a soft robot capable of navigating a path comprising flat and inclined surfaces, obstacles, and rough terrains.

[ SDU ]

In 2023, we were honored to have numerous clients place their trust in us, deploying our quadruped robot in a variety of settings. We take pride in our commitment to alleviate our clients’ challenges, a mission that has been at the heart of DEEPRobotics since the beginning. We’ve selected a few symbolic cases to share with you, and we hope you find them as fascinating as we do. Enjoy!

[ Deep Robotics ]

Check out precision layout through the “eyes” of the Dusty FieldPrinter. More than just lines on the ground, the FieldPrinter seamlessly syncs the digital model to the jobsite floor with unparalleled accuracy and detail.

[ Dusty Robotics ]

Why do data centers of the future need to be state-of-the-art, and why do we need to apply so many technologies to them? There are engineers tackling this very question with robotics, autonomous driving, and AI technologies. In this video, they explain the reason behind developing the robots and autonomous shuttles of the data center GAK Sejong.

[ Naver Labs ]

Failure is just a necessary stepping stone towards success. Follow Team RoMeLa’s journey with our humanoid robot ARTEMIS! Humanoid Locomotion Competition, IEEE Humanoids Conference 2023.

[ RoMeLa ]

A fascinating history of the KR FAMULUS, the world’s first industrial robot with an electric motor, which went into service in Augsburg half a century ago! Starting with the vision of creating robots that would make work and life easier for people, the foundations were laid for today’s robot revolution. Richard Schwarz, one of the KUKA pioneers, gives a first-hand account of how, driven by passion and the German engineering spirit, they developed the KR Famulus, shaping the technology shift from cumbersome hydraulic robots to innovative, clean electric motor robots.

[ Kuka ]