RoboGames 2013: Combots-General vs Toro - (watch video)

General faces off against Toro in an exciting Combots match at RoboGames 2013.

Fitbit for Dogs - (watch video)

Pawprint Has Built An Activity Tracker For Dogs, Along With A Doggie Social Network

Charging Mobile Devices From A Cooking Fire - (watch video)

Startup Flamestower is hoping a low-cost gadget that turns thermal energy from a cooking fire into electricity to charge mobile devices will be a boon to the developing world.

Can Visualization Software Make Land Mine Detectors More Accurate? - (watch video)

Red Lotus Technologies has figured out to turn signals from basic land mine detectors into visualizations that appear on a mobile phone or pad computer.

Stanford Startup's Clever Audio Speakers Snap Into the Corner of a Room - (watch video)

When students design audio speakers, it's no surprise that they'll look good in a dorm room or small apartment. But Tiptop Speakers' twist--using the corners of the room to maximize the sound--could broaden the appeal beyond the student crowd.

Tickle's Haptic Armbands Reach Out and Touch You - (watch video)

Project Tickle hopes sending "touches" via cellular systems or the Internet will add a new dimension to long-distance relationships.

RoboGames 2013: Great Pumpkin vs Sabretooth - (watch video)

Fire breathing Great Pumpkin tries to toast Sabretooth during the 220 Lb/100 Kg Combot competition at RoboGames 2013.

RoboGames 2013: Combots - Pretaraptor vs Prometheus - (watch video)

Pretaraptor takes on Prometheus during the Combots compettion, 220 Lb/100 Kg class, at RoboGames 2013.

Legged Robot Performs Acrobatic Leaps - (watch video)

Presented at ICRA 2013 by Aaron M. Johnson and D. E. Koditschek, University of Pennsylvania. Learn more: http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/robotics-hardware/upenn-kodlab-rhex-legged-robot-leaping

John Legend: "True Colors" - (watch video)

In a heart-melting moment, TED Talks Education host John Legend sits at the piano to sing "True Colors," giving the lyrics a special meaning for kids and teachers. "So don't be afraid / to let them show / your true colors / are beautiful, like a rainbow."

Geoffrey Canada: Our failing schools. Enough is enough! - (watch video)

Why, why, why does our education system look so similar to the way it did 50 years ago? Millions of students were failing then, as they are now -- and it's because we're clinging to a business model that clearly doesn't work.

Pearl Arredondo: My story, from gangland daughter to star teacher - (watch video)

Pearl Arredondo grew up in East Los Angeles, the daughter of a high-ranking gang member who was in-and-out of jail. Many teachers wrote her off as having a problem with authority. Now a teacher herself, she's creating a different kind of school and telling students her story so that they know its okay if sometimes homework isn't the first thing on their mind.

Malcolm London: "High School Training Ground" - (watch video)

Young poet, educator and activist Malcom London performs his stirring poem about life on the front lines of high school. He tells of the "oceans of adolescence" who come to school "but never learn to swim," of "masculinity mimicked by men who grew up with no fathers." Beautiful, lyrical, chilling.

Ramsey Musallam: 3 rules to spark learning - (watch video)

It took a life-threatening condition to jolt chemistry teacher Ramsey Musallam out of ten years of "pseudo-teaching" to understand the true role of the educator: to cultivate curiosity. In a fun and personal talk, Musallam gives 3 rules to spark imagination and learning, and get students excited about how the world works.

Bill Gates: Teachers need real feedback - (watch video)

Until recently, many teachers only got one word of feedback a year: "satisfactory." And with no feedback, no coaching, there's just no way to improve. Bill Gates suggests that even great teachers can get better with smart feedback -- and lays out a program from his foundation to bring it to every classroom.

First Flight Tests for a Quadrotor UAV with Tilting Propellers - (watch video)

Presented at ICRA 2013 by Markus Ryll, Heinrich H. Bulthoff, and Paolo Robuffo Giordano from the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics

3D/4D ultrasound hologram printing service using Pioneer's compact holographic printer #DigInfo - (watch video)

Pioneer has announced a service that prints the expressions of unborn babies as 3D holograms, using a compact full-color hologram printer developed by the company last year. This device can record full color card-sized Lippmann hologram in 120 minutes.

IkeaBot: An Autonomous Multi-Robot Coordinated Furniture Assembly System - (watch video)

Presented at ICRA 2013 by Ross A. Knepper, Todd Layton, John Romanishin, and Daniela Rus from the Computer Science and Arti?cial Intelligence Lab, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Robot Self-Assembly by Folding: A Printed Inchworm Robot - (watch video)

Presented at ICRA 2013 by Samuel M. Felton, Michael T. Tolley, Cagdas D. Onal, Daniela Rus, and Robert J. Wood from the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, Harvard University Read more at http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/robotics-hardware/this-crawling-inchworm-robot-can-be-printed-out-and-folds-itself

ShaoLan: Learn to read Chinese ... with ease! - (watch video)

For foreigners, learning to speak Chinese is a hard task. But learning to read the beautiful, often complex characters of the Chinese written language may be less difficult. ShaoLan walks through a simple lesson in recognizing the ideas behind the characters and their meaning -- building from a few simple forms to more complex concepts.