BeatBots

CES 2010

beatbots — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 00:53:28 +0000

We exhibited Keepon at CES in Las Vegas last week, courtesy of JETRO.

Press included Hack a Day, Butterscotch, Bright Side of News, and two videos by Robotics Trends. We also had good fun out on the town with Evan at BotJunkie!

Keepon in top 10 robots of the decade

beatbots — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 16:35:28 +0000

Happy new year from BeatBots!

Keepon was selected as one of the top 10 robots of the past 10 years by GoRobotics. At the top of the list:

We tried to pick robots that have made an impact in our culture or have impacted the hobby or science of robots in a major way… Keepon is hard to describe, other than “incredibly cute,” and it’s still stunning how lifelike and emotive two squishy stacked balls with googly-eyes can be… Keepon makes the “Top Robots of the past 10 Years” list simply because of his amazing ability to charm his way into mainstream culture.

Read more…

IREX 2009

beatbots — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 07:51:16 +0000

We just finished exhibiting Keepon at the International Robot Exhibition at Tokyo Big Sight. With Kokoro’s Actroid Sara as Keepon’s robo-buddy, our booth was rather popular!

We were covered by Robots Dreams (great to finally meet you, Lem!) and Akihabara News.

Keepon Bento

beatbots — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 20:35:23 +0000

Some people use Keepon as a weight-loss method, but AnnaTheRed has prepared a Keepon-themed bento box for her boyfriend. We love it, and we’re sure her boyfriend enjoyed the well-balanced meal of rice, eggs, meatballs, and broccoli more than the undoubtedly chewy fleece version she made him. We hope she’ll cook for us next time we’re in NY…

RoboDays Festival

beatbots — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 12:04:26 +0000

We’re exhibiting Keepon at the RoboDays Festival in Odense, Denmark. It’s the third such event, a follow-up to 2007’s Robots at Play festival (where we won the €10,000 grand prize). We were invited back to participate in the panel of judges. This year’s winner is the EyeSeeCam (picture below), a gaze-tracking helmet with a beautifully actuated foveal camera that follows the wearer’s eye movements.

The promo video for the event is brilliant:

IEEE Spectrum: The Invasion of Cute, Therapeutic Robots

beatbots — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 01:39:41 +0000

IEEE Spectrum’s Josh Romero has made a video about the therapeutic uses of Keepon and Paro. More discussion at Spectrum’s Automaton blog.

Slate V: We, Robots

beatbots — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 00:11:20 +0000

Danielle Parsons filmed a collection of bots at RoboBusiness in a piece for Slate V’s Conventional Wisdom series. Keepon footage at 0:14, 0:24, 3:08, and 4:10.

Congressional Robotics Caucus briefing

beatbots — Sat, 23 May 2009 02:24:24 +0000

We were invited by TTC to demonstrate Keepon at the May 21, 2009 briefing of the Congressional Robotics Caucus at the Capitol in Washington, DC. The Caucus, chaired by Reps. Mike Doyle (D-PA) and Phil Gingrey (R-GA), focuses on challenges faced by the nation’s emerging robotics industry. In addition to several demos, the presentations included an unveiling of A Roadmap for US Robotics.

ICRA 2009

beatbots — Fri, 15 May 2009 07:05:19 +0000

We brought Keepon to the 2nd HRI Robot Challenge (at the ICRA 2009 conference) in Kobe, Japan, May 14-15. He got to play with the extinct robodog AIBO, a worthy adversary…

UPDATE: Keepon has won the competition for the second year in a row! We received a lovely certificate from the Mayor of Kobe.

Keepon at Yale

beatbots — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 02:50:36 +0000

A Keepon is being used at Yale University’s Department of Computer Science and Child Study Center by Dr. Brian Scassellati and his students. The Yale Daily News reports:

Bright yellow, with a cartoonish nose and pair of eyes and standing about 4 inches tall above its base, Keepon looks like a cross between a marshmallow Peep and a snowman. And Keepon has become a YouTube sensation — because this robot can dance.

Keepon can improvise to any song with a reasonable beat, said Brian “Scaz” Scassellati, a computer science professor who received tenure last week, exposing the robot’s inner workings while putting him through his paces. Partially built by former undergraduate Marek Michalowski ’02 GRD ’03 and imported from Japan, Keepon helps Scaz and his assistants — four graduate students and about seven undergraduates — study when and why humans identify with object motion.

Scaz’s team is probing a complicated question: What makes ascribe humans qualities to Keepon?

“It’s a blob that moves around,” Scassellati pointed out. But when Keepon starts to bop its “head” to pop music, many intuitively perceive it to be dancing.

“It really challenges you to define the boundaries of what you’re willing to attribute to something,” he said.

Read more…