Want to build a robot? Join the club. Want to improve the way we build robots? Join Willow Garage. This silicon valley based robotics company is not just designing robots, they’re working on how we design robots by building a programming language and a standard research bot. Best of all, their software is open source – able to be viewed by its users so that they can understand and upgrade it as needed. Imagine a future where each robotics developer can share hardware and software components with each other in a modular fashion.  You could just build a robot like a plug and play computer. With open source techniques Willow Garage hopes to expand the boundaries of robotics, both in research laboratories and in our daily lives.

And they’ve done a pretty amazing job so far. A few weeks ago they achieved their second major milestone: getting a robot to navigate it’s way around their labs, identifying and plugging itself into electrical outlets. Yep, plug a robot in and you’ve fed it for a day. Teach it how to plug itself in and you’ve fed it forever. The Personal Robot mark 2 (PR2) wandered around the labs, opening doors, and plugging in to 9 different outlets and identifying one that was unreachable. Check out the video after the break.

What was their first milestone? Getting the robot to move around the lab without breaking everything. Not a simple goal. As some of you already know, getting a robot to navigate a course, and to plug itself in, aren’t new accomplishments. What is remarkable is the autonomy, judgment, and persistence of the bot. The PR2 took minutes for it to plug itself in, but it got there with reliability. That’s part of the whole philosophy for Willow Garage: they’re not making perfect robots, they’re making it easier to perfect robotics.

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