OStatic

Can open source take the field of robotics where it's never been before? We've covered several of the efforts to do so in previous posts, including here,?here, and here.?There are continuing efforts going on all around the world to advance open source robot platforms--some focused on humanoid robots and some not--and here's an update on several of the notable ones.

If you happen to own a Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner, you already have a robot in your life. (I have a Roomba, and highly recommend it--available at Target.) Roomba is a classic example of how a robot doesn't have to be humanoid to be useful. In the open source community, though, there are several efforts to develop robots that look and/or act like humans, performing interesting and useful tasks. They're not C3PO at this stage of their development, but they show tremendous promise, especially if more open source contributions are made to the projects. Here are a couple of good examples to take a gander at.