Weekly Robotics #343
The schedule for the Robotics and Simulation Devroom at FOSDEM 2026 is out! We have some exciting talks lined up. I'm really looking forward to it, and if you can come to Brussels at the end of January, I highly recommend it!
The robots we saw at CES 2026: The lovable, the creepy and the utterly confusing
CES 2026 came and went with numerous announcements and robotics-related products. The linked article includes highlights you might want to review. If you’d like to dig deeper, you can find the list of all robotics exhibitors at CES here.
Moravec’s Paradox and the Robot Olympics
Last year, Benjie Holson introduced Robot Olympics, a challenge for robotic teams to solve problems that, although reasonably easy for humans, should be difficult for robots. Well, Physical Intelligence came and claimed a bunch of these tasks as potentially solved. I honestly didn’t expect the general robots to progress so quickly, but here we are. Well done!
Horus
HORUS (Hybrid Optimized Robotics Unified System) is “A production-grade robotics framework built in Rust for real-time performance and memory safety. HORUS delivers sub-microsecond IPC latency (50-500x faster than ROS2) while maintaining a simpler developer experience”. I’m curious to see how this framework compares with Copper-rs, and I can’t wait to see some robot applications built with it.
Flying Umbrella V2 (FULLY AUTONOMOUS)
An autonomous umbrella sounds like something many of us could need. Here is how you could create one, assuming you don’t run into some mysterious hardware issues as pictured in this video. Nice build!
I Ignored All Lithium Battery Safety Warnings.. For Science!
The title of this video is self-explanatory. Thought it would be quite relevant since many of us work with batteries. Don’t try this at home.
Electric Snowblower Clears The Way With Hobby Parts
If you’ve been following this newsletter for some time, you know I’m a sucker for this kind of project. Very nice restoration/conversion of an old snowblower. I wish I had the need and time to make something like this!
Tobor Robotics
I somehow missed this project, but it looks very cool, especially since it’s open-source:
Tobor is a fully featured robotic system that can fit on your desktop and is capable of helping you automate your workflow. Tobor (robot spelled backwards), is built to be the most versatile open-source robotics system, which can be customized endlessly to meet your automation needs. Easily combine robotic arms, motion platforms, sensors, actuators, and more to create your unique machine.
Mobileye acquires humanoid robot startup Mentee Robotics for $900M
The Israeli company announced Tuesday during CES in Las Vegas it has reached a deal to acquire Mentee Robotics — a startup co-founded by Shashua in 2022 — for $900 million. Under the agreement, Mobileye will buy Mentee Robotics for about $612 million in cash and up to 26.2 million shares of common stock.
Events
- FOSDEM 2026: Jan 31 - Feb 01, 2026. Brussels, Belgium
- Embedded World 2026: Mar 10 - Mar 12, 2026. Nuremberg, Germany
- European Robotics Forum: Mar 23 - Mar 27, 2026. Stavanger, Norway
- Commercial UAV Forum: Apr 22 - Apr 23, 2026. Amsterdam, Netherlands
- Open Hardware Summit: May 22 - May 23, 2026. Berlin, Germany
- ICRA 2026: Jun 01 - Jun 05, 2026. Vienna, Austria
- 2026 Energy Drone & Robotics Summit: Jun 22 - Jun 24, 2026. Houston, Texas, United States of America
- Robotics: Science and Systems: Jul 13 - Jul 16, 2026. Sydney, Australia
- Open Source Summit: Oct 07 - Oct 09, 2026. Prague, Czechia
For more robotic events, check out our event page.
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