Mechanical Engineer at Boston Dynamic 

                                                    

Atlas is a research platform for Boston Dynamics. We use it as a technology demonstrator to push the boundaries of hardware design and control systems. We select applications like dance and parkour to facilitate pushing these boundaries.

HOW FAST CAN ATLAS GO?

The fastest Atlas has run is around 5.5 mph. There’s a running joke here where we keep thinking the robot is at its hardware limits in terms of strength, speed, and flexibility, but then the software team finds a way to do something more athletic and coordinated than we were ever able to before. So we really don’t know how much more we can extend Atlas’s capabilities with its current design.

WHAT WAS THE FIRST PROTOTYPE OF ATLAS?

Boston Dynamics’ first humanoid prototype was called PetProto, which was a precursor to our robot Petman. We took two legs from our robot BigDog and tried to get it to balance; later on, we attached arms. That led to over a decade of humanoid robot evolution to the robot you see on YouTube today, which we refer to internally as HD, short for Humanoid Version D.

Discovering Robots

WHAT GOT YOU INTERESTED IN ROBOTICS?

I was always taking apart and building things as a kid, but I got interested in robotics specifically in high school when I built a drone with a friend. It was pretty terrible and could barely fly, but in learning about flight control and electronics, and seeing the drone responding to my inputs to stabilize itself, I felt really empowered to build more successful robots in the future. In undergrad, I learned a lot of the fundamentals of robotics such as mechanics of materials, physics, machining, thermodynamics, and embedded electronics. I also took every opportunity I could find to build robots through projects, competitions, and research labs. I designed spacecraft mechanisms and robots for the Naval Research Laboratory for five years out of college before coming to Boston Dynamics.&

HOW CAN OTHER YOUNG PEOPLE GET STARTED WITH ROBOTS?

Lego EV3 and FLL (First Lego League) are great entry points for younger kids. If you're in high school, FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) teams or FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) teams are awesome. In college, there are tons of opportunities like research labs and undergraduate competitions. And colleges often have great resources and communities to tap into like machine shops, electronics labs, and makerspaces.

Regardless of whether or not you have access to these communities or competitions, take apart everything your parents won't be sad if it breaks. Engines, toasters, computers, fans, old equipment, etc. Probably the most important advice I can give is to just follow your passions. If it excites you and you’re learning, keep following that path, regardless of whether it’s related to robotics or not.

APART FROM SOFTWARE AND ELECTRONICS, HOW MUCH MECHANICS SHOULD YOU STUDY TO APPROACH ROBOTICS?

Nowadays, robotics is highly approachable even if you’re focused in one field instead of all three common to robotics (mechanical, electrical, software). If you want to focus on software, you can buy affordable pre-made kits or robots and spend 90% of your time programming. If you want to focus on mechanics, you can pick projects that don't require complex programming, and use microcontrollers that are simple to program.

Professionally, even as a software engineer or electrical engineer, it’s helpful to understand principles of mechanics like backlash, stiffness, or friction, but you don’t need to be a mechanical designer to develop software or electronics for our robots.

Starting a Career in Robotics

HOW COULD YOU GET INTO ROBOTICS IF YOU'RE IN A FIELD OTHER THAN ENGINEERING?

It depends on what you hope to do with robotics. If you want to work around and with robots, there are lots of non-engineering jobs that can meaningfully interact with robots. For example, there’s robotics presence in the medical, automotive, and media production industries to name a few. If you want to develop robots without being an engineer, it’s a little harder, but there are needs for advisors in non-engineering fields. For example, a physical therapist might work with engineers to develop a rehabilitation robot. If you want to actually design the robots, you’ll need to learn a lot of the fundamentals and likely get a degree in a relevant field like mechanical engineering, software engineering, or electrical engineering.

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