Robot Reviews

Colin Angle, the co-founder, Chairman and CEO of iRobot, will be receiving a Lifetime Achievement Award at the DEMOfall 2009 Conference a few hours from now (September 23).

The award is for his significant contribution to the advancement of science and technology. DEMOfall 2009 is being held at the Sheraton San Diego Hotel & Marina in San Diego, CA. 

iRobot first appeared at DEMO in 2000. Since then, it has become both a household name through its Roomba and PackBot robots. Roomba is literally for the household, being a vacuum cleaner robot. Packbot, on the other hand, is what you may call a literal mean machine; busy earning its stripes in the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Angle is a world-renowned expert in the field of robotics.After graduating from MIT, where he produced a 6-legged autonomous robot named Genghis, Angle teamed up with Rodney Brooks and Helen Greiner to co-found iRobot. 

He also once led a team that designed rovers for NASA's Mars expeditions. You can find his name inscribed in the case of Spirit, the first of two Mars exploration rovers that set foot on the red planet, which is currently on display at NASA. The real Spirit rover is still operating in Mars, 20 times longer than the folks at NASA expected it to last.

Angle and 15 other awardees are supposed to take the stage and share their thoughts, as well as answer questions from the participants, in an interactive open forum.

DEMO has a unique conference format wherein each company is granted only 6 minutes to summarize how their product will change the world - without the use of PowerPoint presentations or any such audiovisual aid. There's also a Demonstrator Pavilion where everyone is given equal visibility privileges. No single booth can dominate the others due to size or fancy stuff.