We seem to think that the great thing about robots is that they’ll be around forever and that they’ll just need the occasional tune up, but that’s precisely the problem with robots. They need to be maintained constantly and retrieved should they be used in the field as they are neither non-toxic nor biodegradable. Enter Dr. Jonathan Rossiter with the solution.

Rossiter is no stranger to biological robots, in fact he has created robots (EcoBots) that contain a microbial fuel cell that mimics actual digestion and can process things like fruit instead of running off things like fossil fuels or batteries. On top of that, the cells also mimic respiration where oxygen is provided to an electrochemical half-cell to create useful energy.

Since the bots don’t require any recharge, they are completely autonomous and will stop working once the work is completed (or if/when food supplies run out).

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You had better befriend that droid like Luke Skywalker, or else the Voice Activated R2-D2 Star Wars replica robot will give you an attitude instead of following your command to play tag.

At fifteen inches tall, the Voice Activated R2-D2 responds to 40 different commands!

It might cost just shy of two hundred big ones, but when your own R2-D2 gives you lip in the form of an audible swirly, and then having to say, “R2, behave yourself!” to get him to listen to you again is just priceless.

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That’s right, an 8.6 pound Scooba 390 robot can and will vacuum, scrub, and wash clean 425 square feet of hard floor surface on a single tank of cleaner, and it can clean 850 square feet per battery charge.

iRobot brings the fully automated technological innovations of the future to us in the form of a round bot just 14.8 inches in diameter. It actually looks a bit like an Olympic curling stone, though no ice is required with this bad boy.

As long as the ability to wield dangerously strong vacuum abilities or breathe fire is not possible with the relatively artificially intelligent Scooba 390, this bot appears to be useful and actually functional, using iAdapt tech to go over each section of floor three times before completing its run.

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The life of a firefighter is a mixed bag of fairly mundane things to extremely dangerous situations. One hundred firefighters die per year, according to the United States Fire Administration, while tens of thousands are injured. In order to prevent more casualties, the Naval Research Lab (NRL) has created a robot firefighter that can perform the more dangerous duties.

The NRL is working with researchers from Virginia Tech and the University of Pennsylvania to create the humanoid Shipboard Autonomous Firefighting Robot (SAFFiR), which is based on the CHARLI-L1 created at Virginia Tech. The robot is programmed to autonomously maneuver around the narrow passageways and ladders aboard ships, and fight fires.

It is equipped with a camera and gas sensor to effectively detect fires and an infrared camera to see through smoke in order to pinpoint the fire. The lightweight aluminum central frame and titanium springs minimize overall transport weight, and makes the SAFFiR easy to transport should the need arise.

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At just over eighteen miles-per-hour, DARPA’s funded and Boston Dynamic’s newest animal-based robot, the Cheetah, is the world’s fastest bot and can run with the likes of Usain Bolt and a couple of other extraordinarily talented freaks of Olympic nature.

One of the most fearsome and suspenseful characters in Ray Bradbury’s masterpiece Fahrenheit 451 is the fireman’s ultimate weapon: their artificially intelligent robotic dog. This creature is made to run down any transgressors trying to escape from a book hoarding crime scene in a future where books are outlawed and ruthlessly burned by the fire department.

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Combining all of the coolest and favorite toy elements from my epic youth into one giant fun-ball would still fall short (just barely though) of the potential that Mantzel’s robot has for thrills.

Watch out before turning the corner at the kitchen door. A robot could be scuttling by along the floor aiming to fire ping pong balls, while his partner traverses the living room couch in hopes of shooting a foam dart at any transgressor.

With the amazing evolution of modern robotics in the twenty first century, inventor Jaimie Mantzel has magnanimously offered up an innovative new radio controlled toy robot – that’s right, toy – for kids of all ages (and that includes me, folks).

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Popular Science’s Best of What’s New in 2011, and a fan favorite at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show, the Sphero rolls on down the avenue of robotic innovation. And that’s without a robot!

Sphero is a ball, about the size of a Magic 8-ball, that moves around through a (one time only) Bluetooth connection with a smartphone or tablet that serves as its remote control. The “Sphero” App is the brain of the device and can program it to adhere to the user’s voice commands that will get it to move, or even play dead.

There are many ways to drive the Sphero, and the “Sphero Golf” application allows an iPhone to act as a putter and club the ball, without actually touching it, toward any office garbage can or hole. There is also a Space Invaders-like game where the player holds and turns the Sphero ball to fight off the spaceships on the iPad screen’s starry backdrop.

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I know, I know, it’s like something out a dream. Finally, there’s a robot that can grab a beer out of the fridge. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the future.

Robots have been around for quite some time, but it isn’t until now that many people are beginning to really invest money and time into worthwhile causes. Steve Cousins, former Xerox veteran, believes that the usage of robots will become as prolific as the use of the home computer in the near future, and has created some of his own personal robots at  his startup firm Willow Garage.

Currently the star of the show is PR2, a robot that can be programmed to pretty much do anything. Bosch has turned around and programmed the robot to do everything from simple tasks like delivering mail to more complex jobs like woodworking and of course the all-important beer-fetching.

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Just when you thought it was safe to sleep worry-free of the robot apocalypse, Romo plugs into your iPhone, syncs up – gears moving – and runs rampant across the apartment!

This is no futuristic noir fiction; this is reality.

However, the Romotive creators have not implemented their smartphone robot to eliminate humanity, but rather they wish for us to have fun with them, the bots.

The Romo looks like a transparent toy tank, which is fun in and of itself, but the bot is so much more. And for a donation of just seventy-eight dollars consumers can revel in the revelatory possibilities of a robot made to be tinkered with.

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The NAO Next Gen is a humanoid robot from Aldebaran Robotics that can recognize your face!

That’s right, the NAO Next Gen bot will scan faces using two brains in order to correctly greet and interact with specific people that the NAO knows.

The future that Asimov foresaw (in the book iRobot) is starting here with a wave of revolutionary robotics. The Paris based Aldeberan engineers already boast that their NAO robots are the most widely used humanoid robot for academic purposes worldwide.

These robots learn as you teach them things, such as catching a ball or following someone (which is a little creepy, I know).

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