Part I – By Julie McCay Turner
Celebrating the art and science of robotics, the sixth annual National Robotics Week is underway now, through Sunday, April 12. Begun as an initiative of Bedford’s iRobot Corporation, the event includes more than 200 activities, according to Lisa Freed, STEM program manager at iRobot, and lead coordinator for National Robotics Week.
From Robot Day at San Diego’s public library to the Robo Cup soccer tournament at Bowdoin College in Maine, National Robotics Week 2015 boasts events in all 50 states, its own web page, and a Facebook page as well as support from dozens of museums, universities and robotics companies.
Freed, a Bedford resident, recently led a tour of iRobot’s Cool Stuff room for guests of Senior Robotics Engineer Steven Shamlian. With family visiting from the West Coast as well local Bedford relatives looking on, Shamlian proudly shared some of his experiences working on the first Roomba, Cobra and Ava as the iRobot products came up during Freed’s tour. Shamlian began his career at iRobot in 2002 as an intern after graduating from Bedford High School, and returned to the company as an employee in 2006, with a degree from Carnegie Mellon University. His current assignments are “skunkwork,” aka nothing that can be publicly disclosed.
Explaining that there’s always a “next best way” to do something, Freed showed how iRobot’s early prototypes became features of iRobot products like Roomba or PakBot. Most of iRobot’s products share a sense of corporate DNA with CEO Colin Angle’s very first “Robot in a Box,” constructed using chopsticks and duct tape.
Click to read Part 2 – an interview with iRobot’s Co-founder and CEO Colin Angle
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