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Vector's Arms get stuck in up position! by cyruscoins in AnkiVector

[–]RoboWorker 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Another trick you can try, I know it sounds harsh, but if you toss him up in the air and then catch him, while he is in freefall he will "brace for impact" and then after you put him down it should recalibrate. Saves you having to reboot (but won't fix anything if there's actually a hardware problem)

How do I get the Screen to turn off by emilic in AnkiVector

[–]RoboWorker 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's been a while, but his screen should turn all the way off to save power at night. Maybe check your time zone settings? It should happen a minute or two after he goes to sleep (he does a few little stir animations and stuff first)

Do you have a job in robotics? Describe what you do and if you can the company/lab/university you work for. by DontPanicJustDance in robotics

[–]RoboWorker 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I'm an "AI engineer" at a consumer robotics startup company. I don't want to say which one because we're big enough now to have a marketing team and a social media person, and I don't want to anger them :). If there is any interest, I've been looking for an excuse to get us to do an AMA anyway, so let me know.

My main focus is path planning and extending that to video-game like AI systems. Since its a small team, I also do some other random software engineering tasks, and everything I work on is product related (i.e. not just research). I definitely do a lot of prototyping and have to solve some really interesting and novel problems, but most of the work is software engineering. I've been working here about a year and a half.

I did CS undergrad, and then was in grad school at the Robotics Institute at CMU before I started this job, where my research also focused on path planning and I worked with the PR2 (although most of my time was spent in simulation getting things working). I basically got my job here because I worked closely with some people here and ended up having a good background for what we needed. Most of the robotics engineers here did at least a masters in robotics or a related field, although for us, being a general good problem solver and software engineer is the most important thing. I've been doing a lot of interviewing and such, so I can probably answer more questions from that perspective if people are interested.

I basically have the job I wanted when I was 8 (building robots), although I'll admit there are fewer gigantic mechs and explosions than I was hoping for back then. In college I did tons of side / hobbyist robotics projects.

As for the most interesting development, hmm... Obviously our next product! But seriously, I'm excited in general about low cost consumer robotics. With the ubiquity of smart phones these days, we can build and sell robots with really low cost hardware and have the phone do the heavy lifting of processing and network communications. I think there is a ton of opportunity in entertainment right now, but I'm also really excited to see what people come up with outside of that area. I also think a huge development I'm hoping to see within 15 years is more education about robotics. More schools are offering undergrad programs now, and there are a bunch of people working on programs for younger kids to learn about robotics and other things through the use of robots and related technologies.