This Tiny Palm-Sized Drone is the Future of Battlefield Surveillance and Military Recon

Quite reminiscent of the Hunter-seeker drones from the DUNE movie series, the Black Hornet 4 is shaping up to be an incredibly small yet exceptionally handy recon drone, capable of flying into areas unnoticed, and helping perform important surveillance required during military strategy and battle planning. This miniature marvel, weighing a mere 70 grams, packs a powerful array of features. Equipped with a 12-megapixel camera, superior low-light performance, and a high-resolution thermal imager, the Black Hornet 4 empowers soldiers with exceptional situational awareness on the ground.

Designer: Teledyne FLIR

However, its true potential lies in its ability to excel in challenging environments. Boasting a flight time exceeding 30 minutes, a range surpassing 2 kilometers, and the capability to withstand strong winds, the Black Hornet 4 navigates even the most demanding situations with ease. Additionally, its low visual and audible signature makes it ideal for covert operations, allowing for discreet deployment and data collection. The system’s ability to function in GPS-denied environments adds another layer of versatility, ensuring reliable operation regardless of external factors.

This innovative technology has already seen significant global adoption, with over 20,000 units deployed. The recent contract awarded by the U.S. Army for additional systems further underscores the Black Hornet 4’s impact. This tiny tech marvel represents a significant leap forward in the realm of personal reconnaissance, offering soldiers unprecedented capabilities and operational flexibility.

Beyond its military applications, the potential of the Black Hornet 4 extends to various civilian sectors. Search and rescue operations in disaster zones, environmental monitoring in remote areas, and even industrial inspections in hazardous environments could all benefit from the capabilities of this miniature marvel. As the technology continues to evolve, we can expect to see the Black Hornet 4, or similar systems, playing an increasingly crucial role in diverse fields, pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in the world of miniaturized aerial technology.

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World’s fastest FPV drone with a 350km/h Top Speed will radically change how we watch F1 Races

The fact that the world’s fastest FPV drone looks somewhat like a missile is simultaneously incredibly cool and incredibly scary. It might change how we watch F1 races, but it has the potential to change much more than just that.

This just seems like the kind of crazy thing Red Bull would pull off. The company decided to challenge multiple-time F1 champion Max Verstappen to a race – the catch, Verstappen would be behind the wheel of a Red Bull F1 car, while his opponent would be the world’s fastest FPV drone. The project was in collaboration with Dutch Drone Gods, a group of FPV drone makers and pilots known for holding the existing title of the world’s fastest FPV filming drone with a 150km/h top speed. The only problem – Verstappen’s F1 car is more than twice as fast.

Designers: Red Bull Advanced Technologies & Dutch Drone Gods

Drones aren’t new in the F1 circuit, given that the racing organization uses a combination of aerial filming methods to get their shots. Sustained footage is taken on helicopters that hover above the track, but for up-close shots, the F1 team relies on drones… the only problem is that these drones don’t follow the car around. They simply hover in the air, taking cinematic panning/dolly shots before the camera angle changes. Understandably, creating a drone that can follow an F1 car around like a third-person camera in a video game is just a tad bit short of impossible. Drones have a notoriously low flight time, outputting probably a maximum of 15-20 minutes of flight before their batteries get drained. Moreover, F1 cars can hit speeds of almost 400km/h and are designed to be highly responsive, making razor-sharp turns on the tarmac. The Dutch Drone Gods’ FPV maxes out at 150km/h, and can’t perform sharp maneuvers in mid-air. This meant redesigning the drone to hit higher speeds while being responsive, and perhaps most importantly, not melting or exploding in the air because of all the heat generated by hitting upwards of 300km/h speeds.

Pilot and Founder of DDG Ralph Hogenbirk and F1 World Champion Max Verstappen with the Red Bull PFV Drone

The process saw multiple iterations from the Dutch Drone Gods’ team, who took up the challenge of pushing their drone to be as fast as a Formula 1 racecar. The challenge, aside from speed, was also to make the drone maneuverable, and durable. Initial tests yielded a few pitfalls, wires would melt under extreme heat, parts would wear and tear or even explode, but more interestingly, the drone’s stability would take a beating just because of the wind turbulence created by the F1 car as it zoomed across the track. Two rounds of prototypes also showed that simple off-the-shelf components and 3D-printed outer shells couldn’t handle the task, so the DDG team decided to visit the Red Bull Advanced Technologies headquarters to partner with the team there to design the drone. The new drone had machined metal structures, speed-capable inner components, and an FRP composite outer shell that was lightweight but highly resilient.

The final drone prototype got one single chance to race against Verstappen in the latest RB20 car on the Silverstone track. It fared incredibly well against Verstappen, filming the car as it blitzed through the track. The goal wasn’t to go faster than Verstappen’s car, that would be a foolish mistake, but rather, to capture the racecar from a unique following PoV, giving the audience the effect of moving at the same speed as Verstappen. F1 race broadcasts are already pretty exciting to begin with, but imagine being able to follow a car with a camera, capturing the intense speed, adrenaline, and reflexes of the race in real-time…

The engineering of Red Bull’s FPV drone could potentially revolutionize the landscape of F1 filming. Instead of static camera shots or quick drone shots that just pan across a track, Red Bull has potentially unlocked the ability to now follow cars as they race, creating an even more thrilling broadcast that could practically reinvent how people enjoy the sport. Heck, I could totally conceive the creation of a drone racing championship as a result too. The implications for Hollywood are just as exciting too, with cinematic drones getting a whole lot faster thanks to the Red Bull FPV Drone’s unique shape.

However, a drone hitting speeds of 350km/h has its own pitfalls too. Reconnaissance, surveillance, or potentially even weapon-based payload delivery could somehow become even easier and more accessible to anyone with the right tools. Sure, the Red Bull FPV drone isn’t a ballistic missile, but it’s dangerously close to being unstoppable. Try stopping a drone cutting through a military zone or an airport at 350km/h. This new world is exciting, but just as scary too.

That doesn’t take away from how incredibly impressive Red Bull and Dutch Drone Gods’ demonstration was. The Red Bull FPV Drone currently holds the record for defeating its predecessor by a factor of nearly 200km/h. The new FPV drone also gets the bragging rights of being able to keep up with Verstappen, a feat that not even other F1 racers can hold claim to!

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This WALL-E-inspired tabletop robot has artificial intelligence and a friendly personality

If we’re going to give in to our eventual robot overlords, my only hope is that they’re as adorable-looking as Doly.

With its googly eyes and treadmill-operated motion system, Doly instantly reminds me of Pixar’s WALL-E. Designed as a robot companion with high emotional intelligence, and the ability to respond to requests, evoke joy, and even serve as a learning tool, Doly combines an open-source build with AI capabilities. The result is remarkably better than the tabletop toys you’re used to expecting. Doly is smart, sensitive, and self-sufficient, as it moves around from A to B, enriches you with interactions and those adorable eyes, and then makes its way back to its charging station when it’s low on batteries.

Designer: Levent Erenler – Limitbit Inc.

Click Here to Buy Now: $299 $449 ($150 off). Hurry, only 4/325 left! Raised over $190,000.

On the design front, the Doly adopts a familiar form factor, mimicking the success of WALL-E and even the Vector robot by Anki. It stands at just 68mm (2.67 inches) tall, but has a personality that’s larger than life. Nearly half that height can be attributed to Doly’s massive eyes that give it its distinct cartoonish character that instantly makes you fall in love with the robot. The eyes can look in different directions, respond to stimuli, express emotions, and can even be replaced by imagery like weather status, a clock, or a timer. Depending on Doly’s mood, or how it reacts to your commands, the eyes do most of the speaking… while voice models allow Doly to speak in any tone of your choice too.

Doly accepts touch and voice inputs, through strategically located microphones and capacitive touch surfaces located on its body. You can tap its head, pet it, tickle it, and Doly emotes exactly how you’d expect a pet to. Talk to it too, and its built-in AI responds intelligently to your queries and commands, letting you set timers, know the weather, take a photo, etc. The robot has natural language understanding, and packs an 8MP camera that lets it see the world around it, identify humans, and even recognize familiar faces. Treads on both sides allow Doly to move around too, shifting forward, backward, and even making turns, while ToF sensors on the front allow it to sense depth, and four strategically placed edge-detection sensors prevent your robot from accidentally driving off surfaces like the stairs or a tabletop (Amazon’s Astro could pick up a few lessons from Doly)

On the inside, Doly runs on a Raspberry Pi board that drives its systems and even powers the AI functions. The robot is built on open-source approach with open-hardware and open-design, allowing you to mod or customize your robot in a variety of ways through I/O ports or even by adding quirky attachments to the robot’s magnetic hands. The hands themselves are an interactive dream to begin with, allowing you fistbump your Doly , or even have it grab things, with lights inside the arms adding a rich layer of interact-ability. I/O ports on the top let you build attachments for your Doly, transforming it in a variety of ways and helping you learn robotics too.

8 MP camera allows Doly to memorize and recognize people with their names, take high quality snapshots and many more.

Doly communicates and responds you back with his own voice when you ask about the weather forecast, time, your name and many more.

To that end, Doly’s much more advanced than most other STEM toys out there. It grows with you, learning and evolving to understand you, your mannerisms, needs, etc. so that no two Doly robots are alike after multiple months/years of usage. Moreover, the robot itself encourages people of all ages to learn coding, with support for languages like C, C++, and Python that let you program your robot, and even much more intuitive block-based coding apps like Google’s own Blockly that help children grasp the basics of programming through the robot toy.

Doly relies on cameras to analyze its surroundings and recognize faces, and built-in microphones to pick up on voice commands – that’s a fair amount of data that your toy robot gathers on a daily basis (sort of like your smart camera and smart speaker combined). Coupled with the fact that Doly has a built-in AI that learns from you (which means it does gather data for machine learning purposes), data privacy can be a pretty large concern. To ensure that your data stays safe and away from hackers, governments, and data-brokers who sell data to third parties, Doly stores and processes all its information locally, oftentimes even working offline. Embedded processing power and local storage ensure that your data never reaches any remote server where it can be compromised by targeted hacks.

Other than that, each Doly comes with an app that lets you access specific features like managing settings or performing graphical programming (Doly’s creators emphasize that you don’t NEED an app to use your robot). The creators do, however, mention that the robot can be customized to wild degrees, with even the ability to swap out the Raspberry Pi module on the inside with better CM4 boards that have better RAM and storage. The Doly robot starts at $269 for a DIY kit that lets you build your own robot from scratch, or $299 for a fully assembled bionic buddy. Limitbit, the creators behind Doly, promise free lifetime over-the-air (OTA) software updates to ensure the robot is always up to date with the latest features, and are apparently even working on ChatGPT integration to make your tiny robotic friend even smarter! Just promise that you won’t turn it against humanity!

Click Here to Buy Now: $299 $449 ($150 off). Hurry, only 4/325 left! Raised over $190,000.

The post This WALL-E-inspired tabletop robot has artificial intelligence and a friendly personality first appeared on Yanko Design.

This WALL-E-inspired tabletop robot has artificial intelligence and a friendly personality

If we’re going to give in to our eventual robot overlords, my only hope is that they’re as adorable-looking as Doly.

With its googly eyes and treadmill-operated motion system, Doly instantly reminds me of Pixar’s WALL-E. Designed as a robot companion with high emotional intelligence, and the ability to respond to requests, evoke joy, and even serve as a learning tool, Doly combines an open-source build with AI capabilities. The result is remarkably better than the tabletop toys you’re used to expecting. Doly is smart, sensitive, and self-sufficient, as it moves around from A to B, enriches you with interactions and those adorable eyes, and then makes its way back to its charging station when it’s low on batteries.

Designer: Levent Erenler – Limitbit Inc.

Click Here to Buy Now: $299 $449 ($150 off). Hurry, only 4/325 left! Raised over $190,000.

On the design front, the Doly adopts a familiar form factor, mimicking the success of WALL-E and even the Vector robot by Anki. It stands at just 68mm (2.67 inches) tall, but has a personality that’s larger than life. Nearly half that height can be attributed to Doly’s massive eyes that give it its distinct cartoonish character that instantly makes you fall in love with the robot. The eyes can look in different directions, respond to stimuli, express emotions, and can even be replaced by imagery like weather status, a clock, or a timer. Depending on Doly’s mood, or how it reacts to your commands, the eyes do most of the speaking… while voice models allow Doly to speak in any tone of your choice too.

Doly accepts touch and voice inputs, through strategically located microphones and capacitive touch surfaces located on its body. You can tap its head, pet it, tickle it, and Doly emotes exactly how you’d expect a pet to. Talk to it too, and its built-in AI responds intelligently to your queries and commands, letting you set timers, know the weather, take a photo, etc. The robot has natural language understanding, and packs an 8MP camera that lets it see the world around it, identify humans, and even recognize familiar faces. Treads on both sides allow Doly to move around too, shifting forward, backward, and even making turns, while ToF sensors on the front allow it to sense depth, and four strategically placed edge-detection sensors prevent your robot from accidentally driving off surfaces like the stairs or a tabletop (Amazon’s Astro could pick up a few lessons from Doly)

On the inside, Doly runs on a Raspberry Pi board that drives its systems and even powers the AI functions. The robot is built on open-source approach with open-hardware and open-design, allowing you to mod or customize your robot in a variety of ways through I/O ports or even by adding quirky attachments to the robot’s magnetic hands. The hands themselves are an interactive dream to begin with, allowing you fistbump your Doly , or even have it grab things, with lights inside the arms adding a rich layer of interact-ability. I/O ports on the top let you build attachments for your Doly, transforming it in a variety of ways and helping you learn robotics too.

8 MP camera allows Doly to memorize and recognize people with their names, take high quality snapshots and many more.

Doly communicates and responds you back with his own voice when you ask about the weather forecast, time, your name and many more.

To that end, Doly’s much more advanced than most other STEM toys out there. It grows with you, learning and evolving to understand you, your mannerisms, needs, etc. so that no two Doly robots are alike after multiple months/years of usage. Moreover, the robot itself encourages people of all ages to learn coding, with support for languages like C, C++, and Python that let you program your robot, and even much more intuitive block-based coding apps like Google’s own Blockly that help children grasp the basics of programming through the robot toy.

Doly relies on cameras to analyze its surroundings and recognize faces, and built-in microphones to pick up on voice commands – that’s a fair amount of data that your toy robot gathers on a daily basis (sort of like your smart camera and smart speaker combined). Coupled with the fact that Doly has a built-in AI that learns from you (which means it does gather data for machine learning purposes), data privacy can be a pretty large concern. To ensure that your data stays safe and away from hackers, governments, and data-brokers who sell data to third parties, Doly stores and processes all its information locally, oftentimes even working offline. Embedded processing power and local storage ensure that your data never reaches any remote server where it can be compromised by targeted hacks.

Other than that, each Doly comes with an app that lets you access specific features like managing settings or performing graphical programming (Doly’s creators emphasize that you don’t NEED an app to use your robot). The creators do, however, mention that the robot can be customized to wild degrees, with even the ability to swap out the Raspberry Pi module on the inside with better CM4 boards that have better RAM and storage. The Doly robot starts at $269 for a DIY kit that lets you build your own robot from scratch, or $299 for a fully assembled bionic buddy. Limitbit, the creators behind Doly, promise free lifetime over-the-air (OTA) software updates to ensure the robot is always up to date with the latest features, and are apparently even working on ChatGPT integration to make your tiny robotic friend even smarter! Just promise that you won’t turn it against humanity!

Click Here to Buy Now: $299 $449 ($150 off). Hurry, only 4/325 left! Raised over $190,000.

The post This WALL-E-inspired tabletop robot has artificial intelligence and a friendly personality first appeared on Yanko Design.

Baby roach mechanical experiment may be your next cute pet (or nightmare)

Some of the most popular (not necessarily best) memes are of people who seem to be brave on the outside but are reduced to screaming messes when faced with a cockroach. We’re talking both men and women here and seeing them freak out over these insects is apparently funny to some people. So this concept for a robotic cockroach may be the stuff of nightmares for some or a fascinating experiment for those who are curious.

Designer: Luis Lopez

Baby X-Roach is a concept or experiment into creating a robotic creature that is usually a source of disgust or fright. In his description of this creature he created, he says that she has a huge and kind heart with her curiosity keeping her alive even if most people don’t see it. It is designed to have a high tech aesthetic even though it is a low poly creation (small number of polygons in 3D computer graphics).

Based on the animations the designer included, the structure of the Baby X-Roach seems to be based on the actual cockroach’s look but with a high tech aesthetic. It may actually look right at home in a Tesla facility as per the creator. It can also be part of the Into the Spiderverse animated universe as it looks like it may be insect cousins with the spider that bit Miles Morales, with its red and black colors and mechanical movements.

This insect doesn’t seem to have any other function except to be a cute, mechanical pet. Well, that is, if you’re not afraid of roaches. If you are, you just might squish it if you see it scurrying across to you, which would be a shame for this baby roach.

The post Baby roach mechanical experiment may be your next cute pet (or nightmare) first appeared on Yanko Design.

Uber Eats expands its autonomous food delivery service to Japan

Following its autonomous food delivery launch in Miami and Fairfax, Virginia, Uber Eats will soon be offering the same robotic service in Japan — its first outside the US. It is once again collaborating with Google alum startup Cartken, with local compliance help from Mitsubishi Electric, to bring a fleet of Model C sidewalk delivery robots to select areas in Tokyo in March. Uber Eats Japan CEO Shintaro Nakagawa says the autonomous delivery service will solve the local labor shortage issue, while complementing the existing human delivery methods "by bicycle, motorbike, light cargo, and on foot."

Cartken's six-wheeled Model C uses six cameras and advanced AI models for autonomous driving plus obstacle detection, and remote control mode is available when needed. With guidance from Mitsubishi, the robot has been modified to suit local needs in Japan. For one, its speed is capped at 5.4 km/h or about 3.36 mph as per local regulation, which is a lot slower than the 6 mph top speed it's actually capable of. The loading capacity has also been reduced from 1.5 cubic feet to about 0.95 cubic feet (27 liters), likely due to the extra thermal insulation in the compartment. Uber Eats adds that for the sake of privacy, people's faces are automatically masked in footage captured by the robots.

While this is Uber Eats' robotic delivery debut in Japan, Cartken already has a presence there thanks to Mitsubishi. Since early 2022, the duo has worked with Starbucks, local e-commerce giant Rakuten and supermarket chain Seiyu in some parts of Japan. In the US, Cartken also has a partnership with Grubhub to provide autonomous food delivery service on college campuses, including the Ohio State University and the University of Arizona.

Even though Uber Eats has yet to share which Tokyo restaurants will be tapping into its robotic delivery service, it should have no problem seeking partnership given Cartken's prior local experience. That said, I highly doubt that the pair would risk trialing their robots through a crowd of drunkards in Shibuya just yet.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/uber-eats-expands-its-autonomous-food-delivery-service-to-japan-092727592.html?src=rss

World’s smallest humanoid robot is more than a toy – it walks, dances and even kicks a ball

School students from Hong Kong have shined in the world sphere with an entry in the Guinness World Records. They have, in the school robotics laboratory, built what is now recognized as the smallest humanoid in the world by the ace record keeper. To reach the feat, they had to do better than just build a miniature bot. A robot to be billed a record holder must be capable of bipedal movement and able to articulate its knees, hips, elbows, and shoulders.

The four-member team of Aaron Ho Yat Fung, Isaac Zachary To, Justin Wang Tou Duong, and Ngo Hei Leung, with their bot which does not have a moniker yet, has broken the record for the smallest robot held by Pakistan’s Zain Ahmad Qureshi. For reference, the humanoid from Diocesan Boys’ School students is “shorter than a standard ballpoint pen.”

Designer: Diocesan Boys’ School, Hong Kong

According to the information shared by Guinness World Records, the new smallest humanoid measures 141 mm tall. For the record, it is estimated 11.3 mm shorter than the previous record-holding robot by Qureshi. Even though the underlying intention of such a miniature robot was to break the Guinness Record; the brains behind it believe, the bot can be a “small, low cost, rechargeable, and programmable” platform for STEAM (science, technology, engineering, the arts, and mathematics) education. The small size also leaves the possibility of mass-producing such a robot at a lower cost.

The robot itself was first designed in CAD and then its acrylic panels and 3D-printed components were produced and assembled in the school’s robotics lab. Students thereafter reached out to a servo motors manufacturer. Putting the servos together on a 16-channel control board, installed at the back of the robot, students were able to control their bot using onboard buttons and via a mobile device.

In addition to moving its legs and arms, the robot, as seen in the video above, can be programmed to dance, do kung fu, and even kick a football. These moves are powered by a built-in 7.4V lithium-ion battery. The Diocesan Boys’ School robotics team wants to make the design and code of their tiny robot open source, which would further their idea of making STEAM education workshops interesting and economically viable.

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Nissan’s interactive robots team up to make in-car parenting a breeze and favorite activity for babies onboard

Experts suggest, going out with your fussy infant for a drive can lull them to sleep and smoothen their peace. But sitting in the car, facing the other way around in their chair, a child may not always be the happiest and you may not have all the control you desire. To your rescue, Japanese auto giant Nissan has designed cute robots that will make in-car parenting a breeze and a favorite activity for your tiny winy.

This is being made possible by Nissan through Iruyo: The Intelligent Puppet. The automaker has collaborated with compatriot Akachan Honpo, a baby goods retailer, to make the Iruyo, furry babysitter. It comes built-in with a range of sensors and communication devices to ensure parents get an affordable toy robot they can safely have around their baby.

Designer: Nissan x Akachan Honpo

To cut the chase, Iruyo: The Intelligent Puppet is a moniker used for a set of two similar-looking state-of-the-art robotic companions that vary visually in their size and come in thoughtfully fashioned red and subtler pink and white colors. The little one, aptly called the Baby Iruyo, is designed to sit near the driver – essentially in the cup holder – while the elder Iruyo rests in the backseat, facing the child sitting in their chair.

Baby Iruyo is programmed to understand voice commands; guess, only in Japanese for now. So, when the child gets cranky in the backseat, the parent can speak some consoling commands such as “I’m here” or “play peek-a-boo” and the little Iruyo relays that to the Iruyo, facing the child, which then makes suitable gestures to keep the kid entertained.

Well, Iruyo is either avatar is only a concept for now, but already the highly researched companion robot has been found to be a preoccupying activity in 90 percent of babies. Half of this percentage of babies have even experienced mood enhancements with the robot by their side. This data is instigating the makers to continue with trials and general experience sessions. One such event is slated at the Akachan Honpo store in LaLaport Yokohama on February 10 and 11.

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Service robot concept doubles as a chair and a tiny private office

Service robots are becoming more common these days, from cute mobile trays that deliver food to your table to large rolling boxes that carry your luggage for you. These robots definitely serve their purpose, and they’re often designed to look pleasing or even friendly, but lack a certain element of interaction that will help put humans more at ease with these mechanical assistants. Some designs try to put a figurative human face on these robots, without much effect, while others try to focus on usability and functionality instead. This concept design, however, goes back to the drawing board to determine the best form that a service robot could take. It turns out, we’ve been sitting on the answer all this time, literally.

Designer: Yunsoo Choi

For all the drama about how robots will be replacing humans in the future, there are already certain industries where service robots have indeed taken the place of flesh and blood workers, particularly in the hospitality industry. That said, most are only capable of performing very menial and mechanical tasks, far removed from the human-like androids of our imaginations and science fiction. More importantly, these robots feel as distant and as detached from our lives as the bags they carry. They lack the interactivity and personal connection that would make them indispensable parts of our lives.

This concept design for a service robot tries to provide that kind of interaction by turning the robot into something more than just that. It uses the chair as the inspiration for its design, a functional object that also provides comfort as well as a point of human interaction. But the robot does more than offer a comfortable place to sit on; it also creates a small bubble that becomes a tiny personal office space, at least if you’re the type that can do their job on a tablet.

That’s because this tablet is what triggers the transformation between a chair and a robot. It acts like the brain of the machine, though it’s also the robot’s “face” as well as its sole interface. It’s how you can get information, pay for your hotel stay, or order food, basically anything that involves actually requesting service. The tablet magnetically attaches to the robot’s arm and can be positioned at the most comfortable angle or height for use, including while sitting on the robot chair.

Aside from these, the design also includes the common functions of such a service robot, particularly when it comes to delivering items to customers or keeping their possessions. It can even disinfect these objects using UV light inside its body. But while the idea of a service robot that also functions as a chair sounds interesting on paper, it raises the question of comfort and safety, two factors that are critical for a piece of furniture like a chair. It definitely looks a little too high to sit on comfortably and functions more like a stool than a proper chair. The “office space” is also a bit of a stretch since there’s not much space to get anything done. Still, the idea deserves more exploration and refinement and could spark more designs for service robots that become space-efficient personal offices for the mobile workers of the future.

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