Japan's Soccer Robots Wear Cleats This Year

This was the main improvement demonstrated by the kid-sized humanoid robots playing at this year's RoboCup in Nagoya.

According to the first place U of Bordeaux team, Rhoban Football Club,

"The main innovation of the robot is located in its feet. The feet are no longer flat but are put on the ground on top of 4 cleats at each foot corner. Only these cleats are in contact with the ground and 'sink' into the artificial grass. This greatly improve the stability of the robot walking on the ”soft” turf."

Robots for Fruit-Picking Jobs

Fruit may join the large number of U.S. crops that are harvested by machines.

Robotics companies like FFRobotics and Abundant Robotics are working on building machines to harvest delicate fruits.

FFRobotics is developing a 4- to 12-armed machine that has three-fingered grips to grab fruit and twist or clip it from a branch -- at a rate of up to 10,000 apples an hour. The machines would leave about 10 or 15% of the fruit on the trees that humans would have to pick.

Abundant Robotics' machine uses a vacuum to pull off apples.

The goal is to have these bots working in a couple of years, and analysts think they can do it.