Smart Tripod wins Microsoft Robotics @Home Competition

Inventor / developer Arthur Wait of Silicon Valley took home $10,000 this week for winning Microsoft's most recent Robotics @Home Competition with his fabulous new Smart Tripod. This device takes several components such as the Eddie Robot Platform, a Kinect, and a Microsoft RDS 4, and creates a perfect companion for the at-home do it yourself aficionado. This tripod is a robot we would not mind keeping in the corner for daily use, that's for certain!

Microsoft Robotics is behind this whole adventure with their Robotics @Home compeition and Robotics Developer Studio 4 (aka RDS 4). This software will allow you to creat robots at home without actually picking up a bit of hardware to construct them yourself. The winner of the most recent Robotics @Home competition Arthur Wait designed his own robot, then went the extra step and constructed it in the real world for this event specifically.

Have a few peeks at the gears here:

After grand prize there was also a First Prize winner for this competition, this given to Team Elderly Assistant – a slightly creepy home-monitoring robot made to watch and asses older adults. Second prize went to Team Plant Sitter, a robot made to take care of household plants. Have a peek first at the Elderly Assistant here:

Each of these devices just so happen to use Kinect in their setups though that was not a stipulation of the contest. Check out our timeline below to see how the Microsoft Kinect has been popping up in our everyday news cycle and be amazed at its spread! Let us know if you've created a robot in your home using Microsoft technologies as well – we'd love to hear about it!