In Robots Podcast episode 168 interviewer Ron Vanderkley speaks with Professor Geoffrey Spinks, a Professional Fellow of the Australian Research Council, who is situated within the Materials Research Group, School of Mechanical, Materials & Mechatronic Engineering, University of Wollongong, which is affiliated with the Australian Research Network for Advanced Materials, and ARC Centre of Excellence for Electromaterials Science. The subject of their conversation is artificial muscles made from simple materials, including nylon fishing line. If fibers of various polymers are twisted into a coil and then baked to set them in that shape, later reheating causes a change in the length of the coil, much as natural muscle fibers contract when activated.

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In episode #167 AJung Moon brings together three interviews relating to promoting the involvement of girls and women in robotics, and STEM generally. In the first interview, Hannah and Rachel Tipperman, a pair of seventeen year olds who are cofounders of Robot Springboard and its offshoot BrightStart Robotics, tell how they became involved in robotics and how they've gone on to make similar experiences available to others. Then, Ross Mead, a Ph.D student in computer science at USC shares his enthusiasm for engaging underrepresented populations in robotics, and how he became involved in this effort. Finally, Prof. Elizabeth Croft, founder of Westcoast Women in Engineering, Science, and Technology (WWEST) shares from her abundant experience as an engineer, an educator, and a professional leader.

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In episode #166, Audrow Nash interviews Peter Corke, Professor of Robotic Vision at Queensland University of Technology, and Director of the ARC funded Centre of Excellence for Robotic Vision. Peter is known for his research in vision-based robot control, field robotics and wireless sensor networks. He begins with a brief history of biological vision before discussing some early and more modern implementations of computer vision. Corke also talks about resources for those interested in learning computer vision, including his book, Robotic Vision & Control, and a massively open online course (MOOC) that he plans to release in 2015.

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In Robots Podcast #165, Audrow Nash interviews Edgars Rozentals, the CEO and Founder of Helico Aerospace Industries. They talk about the company's upcoming product AirDog, which is an autonomous quadrocopter designed to record video for action sports. Airdog is controlled by means of ‘AirLeash’ (a wearable) to track the user as they move and provide the user with simple control of AirDog. Additionally, for advanced control, there is a smart phone application that allows the user to control the flight-path, following angle and height, and mark obstacles. AirDog recently completed a successful KickStarter campaign, raising nearly seven times their original funding goal, and plans to begin delivery in December 2014.

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In episode #164, Audrow Nash interviews John Romanishin, a graduate student studying mechanical engineering and researching self-reconfigurable modular robots at MIT's Distributed Robotics Laboratory, led by Daniela Rus. His modular robotics project is the development of M-Blocks, small cubes (5 cm on a side) with no external actuators, which nevertheless manage to move and even jump.

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In Robots Podcast #163, Audrow Nash interviews Max Rheiner from Zurich University of the Arts (ZHDK) about his project Birdly. Birdly is a flight simulator with a difference. Unlike a common flight simulator, the user embodies a bird. To evoke this embodiment, Birdly mainly relies on sensory-motor coupling. The participant can control the simulator with their hands and arms, movement of which map directly to movement of a bird's wings and primary feathers.

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In episode #162, Audrow Nash interviews James Conrad, professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, about the history of the autonomous walking robot, Stiquito, originally developed by Jonathan Mills of Indiana University, as an inexpensive vehicle for research. Stiquito is a small, inexpensive hexapod robot that has been used since 1992 by universities, high schools, and hobbyists. It is propelled by nitinol (trade name FLEXINOL), an alloy actuator wire that contracts when heated, roughly emulating the operation of a muscle.

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In episode #161, Audrow Nash speaks with Russ Angold, co-founder and CTO of Ekso Bionics, about the wearable bionic suit, Ekso. This suit enables individuals with any amount of lower extremity weakness to stand up and walk over ground with a natural, full weight bearing, reciprocal gait. Walking is achieved by the user’s weight shifts to activate sensors in the device which initiate steps. Battery-powered motors drive the legs, replacing deficient neuromuscular function.

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