January Philadelphia Robotics Meetup Wrap-Up

Last night Hive 76 hosted the first Robotics Meetup Group of 2011. For those who are unaware, the group is organized and run by Roy Brewer and Hive 76 has been hosting a space for the group since September of 2009.

This month’s meeting featured an appearance by inventor & entrepreneur Michael Treat, who’s company Robotic Systems & Technologies, Inc. (RST) has been featured in sources such as the New York Times, ABC, TLC, and BusinessWeek. Mr. Treat stopped by to give a talk on his company’s newest project: a robot called Penelope CS, which is designed to automate work in a hospital’s sterile supply department. Sterile supply is the department where used surgical tools are cleaned, sorted & inspected, packed into containers, and finally sterilized to be ready for the next procedure. The talk concluded with Treat announcing that Penelope CS is ready for action, and RST is looking for partner hospitals in which to deploy the product.

After the talk we discussed ongoing projects within the group including 2 members who are building quadrotors, our uGPS project (an indoor GPS system), and other types of robots (delta bots, for instance).

We meet every second Thursday of every month, and our next meeting is February 10th at 7:30 PM. I’d like to encourage everyone with an interest in robots or electronics to join us. This is a fun and exciting group!