This bonus episode was sponsored by euRobotics, an international non-profit association that aims to boost European robotics research, development, and innovation. Robot Talk is a weekly podcast that explores the exciting world of robotics, artificial intelligence and autonomous machines. Robot Talk is a weekly podcast that explores the exciting world of robotics, artificial intelligence and autonomous machines. Find out what the International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems has in store. Graduate students in the aptly named RAD Lab are working to improve RoboBall, the robot in an airbag.

Yuen Ting Chan has nearly 20 years of experience working on translating, developing and optimising laboratory protocols, from DNA forensics to the biomedical field. She has brought automation to molecular laboratories for over 12 years, translating the laboratory protocols into bespoke scripts for a wide variety of liquid handling instruments. Her role at the Natural History Museum is to bring automation to the molecular laboratories, thus providing more opportunities for researchers to work on projects with large sample numbers for the wide variety of specimens within the museum. Robot Talk is a weekly podcast that explores the exciting world of robotics, artificial intelligence and autonomous machines. Robot Talk is a weekly podcast that explores the exciting world of robotics, artificial intelligence and autonomous machines.

While working at NASA in 2003, Dr. Robert Ambrose, director of the Robotics and Automation Design Lab (RAD Lab), designed a robot with no fixed top or bottom. A perfect sphere, the RoboBall could not flip over, and its shape promised access to places wheeled or legged machines could not reach -- from the deepest lunar crater to the uneven sands of a beach. Two of his students built the first prototype, but then Ambrose shelved the idea to focus on drivable rovers for astronauts. When Ambrose arrived at Texas A&M University in 2021, he saw a chance to reignite his idea. With funding from the Chancellor's Research Initiative and Governor's University Research Initiative, Ambrose brought RoboBall back to life.

Claire chatted to Ali K. Hoshiar from University of Essex about how microrobots move and work together. Ali Hoshiar is a Senior Lecturer in Robotics at the University of Essex and Director of the Robotics for Under Millimetre Innovation (RUMI) Lab. He leads the EPSRC-funded'In-Target' project and was awarded the university's Best Interdisciplinary Research Award. His research focuses on microrobotics, soft robotics, and data-driven mechatronic systems for medical and agri-tech applications. He also holds an MBA, adding strategic and commercial insight to his technical work.