Robots for Everyone!
Our Lab's Robots can be found Everywhere --- in research labs world-wide (Kilobots), in homes and schools (Root), in museums (e.g. Boston Science Museum and Cooper-Hewitt in NY), and in children's books! We have created many open-source systems to empower people of all ages to own and program robots.
ROOT ROBOTICS June 20, 2019: Root Robotics has been acquired by iRobot! (iRobot ROOT Video)
Together with my two co-founders Ziv Dubrovsky and Raphael Cherney, and incubated by the Wyss Institute, we designed Root, an educational robot that drives on whiteboards with magnet+wheels, senses colors and draws under program control! What you can do this with this? Teach programming across all ages! With the same versatile robot, we can go from kindergarden to college, by having a sliding framework of programming languages, starting with our blocks-based language Square for elementary school, all the way to Python for high-school and college. We can create a wide range of fun programming challenges, from learning logic through Art and Games, to learning A.I. by programming search algorithms for future Mars Explorers. Digital literacy is one of the critical challenges facing education, For me, it is especially important to make computer science meaningful and accessible to ALL kids, so we can have true diversity in our technological future. With Root, our goal is to transform the home and classroom experiences with programming, by making it tangible and personal. Every kid should learn to code in a fun way, that enhances their personal interests, and that inspires them to become creative technologies themselves. We aim to be part of that revolution. You can buy Root Robots from iRobot and Amazon.
KILOBOTS (2011-present): In addition to Root, my lab has produced other robotic systems for education outreach and interdisciplinary research. Our Kilobot swarm robots are licensed and sold by KTeam inc; over 8000 robots exist in dozens of research labs world-wide! ("kilos of robots") You can purchase robots from K-Team, but you can also make your own (the hardware and software designs are open-source for non-commercial use). We have also developed a web-based programming environment (kilobotics) along with a set of tutorials to make it easy to get started.Our goal is to make experimental research on collective behaviors possible across disciplines, whether the goal is to develop new engineering methods or understand biological systems synthetically. Kilobots are designed to be accessible to researchers, educators, and museums. In addition to CS/robotics groups (e.g. Sabine Haeurt at Bristol, Marco Dorigo in Belgium), our robots are also owned by biologists. e.g. UCSF's Center for Systems Biology (Wendell Lim) and NJIT Social Insects Research Group (Simon Garnier) who use them for both research/education and public outreach. Sometimes they even appear on buses! LINKS: Buy K-Team Kilobots and programming tools at Kilobotics
MUSEUM EXHIBITS: Our lab has worked with many different museums to develop temporary exhibits about the intersection of biology and technology. One of the very special exhibits was at the Boston Museum of Science, where a large scale exhibit on the NSF Robobees project was developed. This exhibit is now part of the permanent collection called "Wicked Smaht". Termes was featured at the London Science Museum and both Kilobots and Termes are part of a Travelling Exhibit called "Bugs!", that was first featured at the Museum of New Zealand and is now at the Field Museum of Chicago. Most recently Kilobots can be seen at the Cooper-Hewitt Design Museum in New York.
Our Lab's Robots can be found Everywhere --- in research labs world-wide (Kilobots), in homes and schools (Root), in museums (e.g. Boston Science Museum and Cooper-Hewitt in NY), and in children's books! We have created many open-source systems to empower people of all ages to own and program robots.
ROOT ROBOTICS June 20, 2019: Root Robotics has been acquired by iRobot! (iRobot ROOT Video)
Together with my two co-founders Ziv Dubrovsky and Raphael Cherney, and incubated by the Wyss Institute, we designed Root, an educational robot that drives on whiteboards with magnet+wheels, senses colors and draws under program control! What you can do this with this? Teach programming across all ages! With the same versatile robot, we can go from kindergarden to college, by having a sliding framework of programming languages, starting with our blocks-based language Square for elementary school, all the way to Python for high-school and college. We can create a wide range of fun programming challenges, from learning logic through Art and Games, to learning A.I. by programming search algorithms for future Mars Explorers. Digital literacy is one of the critical challenges facing education, For me, it is especially important to make computer science meaningful and accessible to ALL kids, so we can have true diversity in our technological future. With Root, our goal is to transform the home and classroom experiences with programming, by making it tangible and personal. Every kid should learn to code in a fun way, that enhances their personal interests, and that inspires them to become creative technologies themselves. We aim to be part of that revolution. You can buy Root Robots from iRobot and Amazon.
KILOBOTS (2011-present): In addition to Root, my lab has produced other robotic systems for education outreach and interdisciplinary research. Our Kilobot swarm robots are licensed and sold by KTeam inc; over 8000 robots exist in dozens of research labs world-wide! ("kilos of robots") You can purchase robots from K-Team, but you can also make your own (the hardware and software designs are open-source for non-commercial use). We have also developed a web-based programming environment (kilobotics) along with a set of tutorials to make it easy to get started.Our goal is to make experimental research on collective behaviors possible across disciplines, whether the goal is to develop new engineering methods or understand biological systems synthetically. Kilobots are designed to be accessible to researchers, educators, and museums. In addition to CS/robotics groups (e.g. Sabine Haeurt at Bristol, Marco Dorigo in Belgium), our robots are also owned by biologists. e.g. UCSF's Center for Systems Biology (Wendell Lim) and NJIT Social Insects Research Group (Simon Garnier) who use them for both research/education and public outreach. Sometimes they even appear on buses! LINKS: Buy K-Team Kilobots and programming tools at Kilobotics
MUSEUM EXHIBITS: Our lab has worked with many different museums to develop temporary exhibits about the intersection of biology and technology. One of the very special exhibits was at the Boston Museum of Science, where a large scale exhibit on the NSF Robobees project was developed. This exhibit is now part of the permanent collection called "Wicked Smaht". Termes was featured at the London Science Museum and both Kilobots and Termes are part of a Travelling Exhibit called "Bugs!", that was first featured at the Museum of New Zealand and is now at the Field Museum of Chicago. Most recently Kilobots can be seen at the Cooper-Hewitt Design Museum in New York.