Dr. Dennnis Hong delivers a a high-energy, VERY entertaining, and inspiring 20 minute lecture. He talks about the philosophy of “Optimism” and how to handle “Failure” using the story of the development of one of his robots named ALPHRED.

ALPHRED (Autonomous Legged Personal Helper with Enhanced Dynamics) is a multi-modal robot that use four limbs to traverse and manipulate the world around it. ALPHRED is designed with symmetry in mind, so any limb can be used for any task. Because of this, ALPHRED is capable of operating across a variety of terrains in both a quadrupedal (4 legs) form and bipedal (2 legs) form. In its bipedal form, ALPRHED can use its two free limbs as arms to interact with its environment, giving it additional versatility!