I got started the way every robotics enthusiast should: early. Above is my first robot, built and soldered the summer of 1992 when I was 7. I always dreamt of building something bigger, but this toy was my earliest access to making my dreams a reality.

During my work-study at the Entertainment Technology graduate program at Carnegie Mellon University, I had one of the greatest professors, Dr. James Kuffner. He now handles robotics for Google and has access (and creates) the world's greatest robots! It's a luxury few people have (at least for now).

Seeing Honda's ASIMO at Odaiba's Miraikan (Museum of the Future) was awesome! Notice the red tape. If you're not a world-reknowned roboticist, that's as close as you can get. ASIMO like most robots are brittle, despite its incredible sophistication. Breaking one would literally be a million dollar mistake!

This robot is CB2 at Professor Minoru Asada's JST ERATO lab at Osaka University.

CB2 is less brittle than ASIMO, propelling itself not through motors but by running air through him. Human babies can fall down again and again, heal, and learn to walk through failure. CB2 was made to try to learn like a baby.
 

Osaka University's other great robotics professor is Hiroshi Ishiguro, famously known for his robotic facsimile, Geminoid HI-1. I helped his team set up robotic guides at Univeral Studios City Walk in the fall of 2008.

The "Actroid" robot behind Prof. Ishiguro, also out of Osaka University, has another solution for overcoming the dangers of locomotion: it can't walk. But like a lot of the hyper-realistic line of Geminoid robots, this robot touches against the Uncanny Valley. Despite being a humanoid robot, looking too much like a human can result in a feeling of disgust to a real human.

Ishiguro's Actroid was partially developed by Kokoro Co, Ltd., Sanrio's robotics arm. This robot, I-Fairy, was developed by the same lab, can only sit like an Actroid, but doesn't have the realistic humanoid face that turns off so many people. I-Fairy is cute!

Technologies like computer vision and other sophisticated sensors that were before limited to robotic research platforms like the robots above, are now available to almost anyone through the mobile smart phones we all carry today. I excitedly use and develop applications using this technology, and am excited for the future of accessible robots fast approaching.