Disembodied robotic arms, humanoid robots that bumped into things they were supposed to avoid, and Lego-like parts for assembly into everything from robotic dogs to calligraphy machines were evident at this year’s IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) in Shanghai, China.

• Robotic arms: Yaskawa’s arc welding Motoman will be used in factories while the “assistive robotic arms” of Barret Technologies is currently being used as a surgeon’s aid in knee surgery.
• Educational robotics: Shanghai XPartner Robotics’ Dragon Guard is a robotic playmate and study partner. The Darwin OP Open Platform Humanoid Project sells a humanoid bot (with a full PC built into it) to university research labs.
• Robotic kits: Dynamixel sells networked actuators for students to assemble and program. Robotechn’s parts were demoed as robotic worms and starfish displaying different modes of movement selected by the user using a remote control.