S.H., an anonymous worker at Japan’s Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, has written dozens of blog posts describing the ups and downs of his experience as one of the lead robot operators at the crippled facility.

The posts show that, although the robots have to be strong and reliable, they also have to be nimble and compact, to be able to maneuver on stair landings and other tight spots.

S.H. also describes challenges that many robot developers may take for granted, such as the difficulty of handling the controls wearing five pairs of gloves or seeing the user interface from behind bulky masks. Which means that the controls and interfaces need to be made even easier to operate than they already are.

Another big lesson for roboticists, based on the Fukushima operators experience, is that emergency robots shouldn’t be stand-alone machines: They work best in pairs or teams, in which case one robot can work as a wireless base station to allow another unit to travel farther, or they can help each other if they get stuck. And where radio signals don’t propagate well, using a combination of wireless and tethered robots is essential.