A look at what has happened in the world of robots in the last week or so. This feature roundup will give you looks at what robots are doing, what researchers and making and how you can get into the world of robotics in at least a little way.

When it comes to making great art the odds are good that you think about the makers of great art you think of a painter, bent over a canvass agonizing over where to put each stroke, but art can be made  by a robot. 

The machine in question, known simply as the e-David, is designed to do one thing: find great art and copy it.

When it comes to robots we don’t expect them to see the way that we do. But we do expect it to have some way to view the world around it. Maybe we expect that to be in the form of cameras, or perhaps with an infrared map. What we do not expect is for a robot to be completely blind to the world around it, but much like its living counterparts a blind robot can in fact figure out how to get around.

Robots are, for the most part, the prevue of adults. We design them, we build them and we get to play with them, but a growing number of companies are bringing robots to the younger set and some of the companies that started out with adults are looking to kids as a new market for their products.

When it comes to robots sensors make the world real. It allows a machine to help to make sense of the world around them. It tells them when they have made contact with a wall, or when they are in the presence of a desired chemical. One cross continent team is working on a very small sensor.

Surgery always comes with risks, and so does technology. So when you add a new advanced technology to a surgical procedure there is always a risk. Patients and doctors however need to be aware of those risks in order to make good decisions about which courses of treatment are best for the situation at hand. Failing to make exactly that kind of a notification has a woman in the state of New Jersey suing Intuitive Surgical, the makers of the da Vinci surgical robot system.

Olympic swimmers have to train for years to get into the kind of peak physical condition that allows them to push the limits of the human body can do.  When it comes to robots with amazing physical capabilities it is the developers who work hard to create the almost super human like capabilities of the machine.

When it comes to getting your custom blend coffee drink, who do you picture getting it from? The odds are good that you probably picture a happy looking barista handing you a warm cup of your favorite drink with a paper capped straw peeking out of the top. One company in Austin, Texas, Briggo Coffee, has put a coffee robot on a University of Texas campus.