ROBOTS
The Humanoid With a Plan for Falling: Qualcomm's Computex Moment and How to Land Soft
A Qualcomm-powered humanoid fell at Computex 2026. SafeFall research shows how robots land soft, and why architects should design the failure mode first.
Additive Manufacturing in Space: When the Wall Holds Air, Not Weight
Printing in orbit and on the Moon flips the load case: the shell shields, a liner holds the air. A foundation essay with a Grasshopper Python check.
ETH Zurich's Hand That Walks on Its Fingers, and the Shaft No Arm Reaches
ETH Zurich's Soft Robotics Lab trained an 818 g five-finger hand to walk on its fingertips and then work. What that could mean for shafts and ceiling voids.
A Timber Joint With 0.25 mm of Air: Robot-Milled, AR-Guided, Built to Come Apart
UQ researchers mill mortise-tenon timber joints to 0.25 mm and guide assembly in AR. No screws, nails or glue, so components can be taken apart and reused.
The Crane That Lets Gravity Choose: EPFL's CRCL Puts Robots on Site as Colleagues
EPFL's CRCL and SXL scan, drill and crane-place demolition rubble into structural walls and train robot teams to build arches. Free show in Lausanne.
Robots Can Do 74% of Physical Tasks. On a Building Site, Architects Draw the Room
Anthropic's robot-exposure index finds robots can do 74% of US physical tasks but are cost-competitive on 0.3%. Why detailing sets a site's robot-readiness.
The 'Terminator' Had a Pilot, and the Best Fighter Was the Cage
The viral human-vs-robot cage fight was teleoperated. What that means for site robots: autonomy levels, stopping distance and a keep-out zone you can size.
Who Held the Controller? A Cage-Fight Humanoid and the BIM Model Robots Will Read
REK's remote-controlled humanoid kicked an influencer across a cage. A site robot asks who held the controller, and why your IFC doors set robot routes.
The teleop tax, paid down: 12 minutes of an installer's hands
A McGill sim buys a prefab window installer's tacit skill in 12-15 minutes of supervision at the contact-failure boundary — the teleop tax, paid down.
The hand that reports back: why 1X put its motors in the forearm
1X's NEO hand runs a 5:1–15:1 tendon drive so every grasp reports force back — and why that makes your as-built IFC the coordinate frame robots will ask for.
