A Day in the Life of a Roboticist: Charlie Kemp
IEEE Spectrum Robotics — this researcher and entrepreneur builds assistive robots to help people live more independently In this edition of our A Day in the Life of a Roboticist series, we meet Charlie Kemp, cofounder and chief technology officer of Hello Robot, who develops mobile manipulators to help people in their homes and workplaces. His interest in robotics began with the grand challenges of artificial intelligence, and his work has taken him from humanoid robots at MIT to assistive robots for older adults and people with disabilities.
"Working at Hello Robot is a rewarding experience," he says. "I love the community using Stretch robots as research and development platforms. They’re discovering new ways that human-friendly robots can benefit society." Charlie Kemp: Discovering new ways that human-friendly robots can benefit society Hello Robot, which makes the Stretch mobile manipulator. Degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) My favorite humanoid is the Stuntronic Spider-Man by Disney Imagineering. You can see it at the Avengers Campus within Disney California Adventure. It's a beautiful example of the human form being essential to an application. Too often, robots mimic human attributes without a clear justification, but this robot has to look like Spider-Man! The robot safely entertains audiences by consistently executing extreme acrobatic maneuvers. It’s also cleverly engineered to reduce the degrees of freedom while achieving compelling motion. You can see a behind-the-scenes look here. When you watch it, consider the question, "Are the elbows and hands actuated?" I'm a huge fan of science fiction and robots, so this is an impossible question. So many fascinating robots cross my mind, including R. Daneel Olivaw in Isaac Asimov's stories, GERTY from the film Moon, and TARS from the film Interstellar. While I can't pick a favorite, I’ll highlight the HAL 9000 (HAL) as depicted in the films 2001: A Space Odyssey and 2010: The Year We Make Contact. HAL was the robotic brain for the spaceship, dual-armed EVA pods, and, famously, the pod bay doors. I saw 2010: The Year We Make Contact when it first came out in 1984.
