A lesson I keep learning, over and over, since I launched this newsletter over 7 years ago, is that e-mail is hard. This is why this newsletter issue might still seem off; the web version is done and should look much better. Now, let's talk about some robots. I have some good features for you today!
This is the Transistor of Robotics
Matt Trossen wrote an interesting thought piece arguing that we might be witnessing the “transistor moment” in robotics. This is thanks to the electrohydraulic musculoskeletal robotic leg developed by Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems (MPI-IS) and ETH Zurich. Mimicking nature would allow us to create systems that are lighter, faster, more agile, and that require less energy to operate. Looking forward to the future!
Physical Intelligence Wins the Olympics: Deep Dive
Two weeks ago, I featured Physical Intelligence’s submission to Benjie Holson’s Robot Olympics. In this article, Benjie dissects the submissions and awards the team many medals. Seeing the author being surprised by the pace of development here makes me really bullish on these approaches.
Starting A Machine Shop In 2025: Zero Experience Guide
I’ve met many roboticists who took up woodworking or similar activities, and when I came across this video, I thought some might find it useful if they want to pick up machining.
Building A Little Quadruped Robot
Dorian Todd made this little quadruped that could cost as little as $60. The robot is powered by an ESP32 controller and has a cute little display as a face. It even comes with Sesame Studio, which lets you program motions for this robot. This build is open-source; you can find more about it on GitHub
iRobot’s ROS benchmarking suite now available!
The iRobot team had just open-sourced their RMW implementation benchmark suite. The tool allows the creation of reproducible environments to run benchmarks and check the system under various conditions, such as message sizes, communication patterns, and number of nodes. The tool generates really nice analysis in PDF. I’ve added this tool to my Awesome Weekly Robotics list!
Project Instinct
Introducing Project-Instinct, an Instinct-Level whole-body control toolkit for legged robots (especially humanoids). It integrates all features needed to train and deploy your perceptive whole-body control algorithm on a real robot, with plug-and-play modules. To build your training environments, grouped ray-caster cameras, noise model pipelines for depth camera systems, virtual obstacle and penetration rewards for redundancy behavior and large-scale motion reference managers are at your disposal. Additional Performance Monitor manager helps you count training performance without worrying about any logic in critical training components.
You can find a nice overview of this research in this YouTube video.
Why Serve Robotics is acquiring a hospital assistant robot company
Los Angeles-based Serve Robotics announced Tuesday it was acquiring Diligent Robotics, a startup that builds robots named Moxi designed to assist in hospitals by delivering lab samples, supplies, and other tasks. The deal values Diligent’s common stock at $29 million.
iRobot emerges from Chapter 11 as restructured Picea U.S. subsidiary
iRobot Corp. is back from bankruptcy with the completion of Shenzhen Picea Robotics Co.’s acquisition of the consumer robotics pioneer. iRobot said it has emerged from a pre-packaged Chapter 11 process “with an improved financial foundation and additional capacity to invest in the next generation of smart home robotics.”
Events
- FOSDEM 2026: Jan 31 - Feb 01, 2026. Brussels, Belgium
- Embedded World 2026: Mar 10 - Mar 12, 2026. Nuremberg, Germany
- European Robotics Forum: Mar 23 - Mar 27, 2026. Stavanger, Norway
- Commercial UAV Forum: Apr 22 - Apr 23, 2026. Amsterdam, Netherlands
- Open Hardware Summit: May 22 - May 23, 2026. Berlin, Germany
- ICRA 2026: Jun 01 - Jun 05, 2026. Vienna, Austria
- 2026 Energy Drone & Robotics Summit: Jun 22 - Jun 24, 2026. Houston, Texas, United States of America
- Robotics: Science and Systems: Jul 13 - Jul 16, 2026. Sydney, Australia
- Open Source Summit: Oct 07 - Oct 09, 2026. Prague, Czechia
For more robotic events, check out our event page.
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