Robotics & Inventors: Ingredients for a Successful, Innovative Economy

New! Voice of America report on the November 4th, 2015 event:
(English)  (Chinese)

New! Highlights: Produced by the Inventor’s Project  (video)

Briefing in conjunction with the Congressional Robotics Caucus & the Congressional Inventions Caucus

Dear Colleague Letter

Welcome & Opening Remarks

Robotics Caucus Co-Chairs:

Congressman Rob Woodall, Congressman Mike Doyle

Inventions Caucus Co-Chairs:

Congressman Bill Foster, Congressman Paul Gosar

Speakers:

• Mr. Stephen Jurczyk, Associate Administrator, Space Technology Mission Directorate, NASA (PDF Presentation)
• Dr. Martial Hebert, The Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh PA – Accelerating the Robotics Revolution
• Rick Weidinger, Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Robotic VISION Technologies, Bloomfield Hills, MI – Industry 4.0 and the US Economy (PDF Presentation)

Exhibitors:

• Karol Hatzilias, Chief Science Officer and Co-Founder, United Sciences,Atlanta, GA – a global innovator and manufacturer of precision 3D hole scanning and imaging solutions with far reaching implications; developer of a technology platform enabling the creation of custom in-ear devices and hole metrology within precision engineering manufacturing. Demonstrating the eFit.

Additional Info: Computer assisted craftsmanship | Karol Hatzilias | TEDxEmory – 27 May 2015 Hatzilias brings us to the future of goods manufacturing with 3D scanning and imaging. During the course of his talk, Hatzilias builds headphones perfectly customized for the ears of one lucky volunteer with his scanner and printer.

• Rick Weidinger, Robotic VISION Technologies – headquartered in Great Falls, VA, RVT is a privately held machine vision technology company with complete 2D to 3D software vision solutions for state-of-the-art machine automation applications. RVT has labs in Bloomfield Hills, MI and Silver Spring, MD.
• Scott K. Wong, Owner/CEO, HKRobotics, LLC, Honolulu, HI – Showcasing a multirotor drone – a flying metal detector – with extended flight capability (more than 7 hours). Un-Exploded Ordinance Detection and Removal, Air, Land and Sea Monitoring and Survey; scans in real time, maps target on a GPS grid, while software determines the type of IEDs found.

• Howie Choset, Robotics Professor, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA – Series Elastic Snake Robot – snake robot; and Snake Monster – a six legged robot system.

• Jonas Cleveland, Cognitive Operational Systems, COSY, LLC, Philadelphia, PA – specializing in indoor navigation for visually impaired people; COSY is a spin-off from the University of Pennsylvania’s GRASP lab.
• Spencer Penn, CEO, Phlone Technologies, Philadelphia, PA – a startup born in 2015 in the Multi Robot Systems Lab (MRSL) at the University of Pennsylvania, bringing next-generation drone technology to platforms accessible by anyone.
• Ting-Shuo Chou, Graduate Research Assistant, School of Social Sciences, University of California-Irvine, Irvine, CA – Carl-SJR (Cognitive Anteater Robotics Laboratory – Spike Judgment Robot), recently awarded a provisional patent, the robot is designed to help children with autism hone their social interaction skills; being used in a pilot program at UCI’s Child Development school.

• UCI Applied Research, Irvine, CA – a one-stop community of businesses, investors, and entrepreneurs for industry collaboration.
• Sumner Norman, PhD Student, iMove@UCI, Henry Samueli School of Engineering, UC-Irvine, Irvine, CA – The Music Glove, helps people such as combat veterans, improve finger dexterity; device is being commercialized by Flint Rehabilitation Devices, an Orange County start-up company founded by UCI students with the support of small business innovation research grants from the National Institutes of Health and National Institute of Disability and Rehabilitation Research.