Students and faculty in the Department of Computer Science are getting acquainted with Baxter, the newest addition to the Brown robotics lab. Built by Rethink Robotics in Boston, Baxter was designed primarily for use in manufacturing and assembly. However, the Brown Robotics team has other plans for the bot. They’ll use it to research shared autonomy in the household domain. In a post on the Brown CS blog, Stefanie Tellex, assistant professor of computer science, wrote: “Instead of learning to sort widgets from an assembly line, the lab hopes that their research can lead a Baxter and similar robots to learn to handle dirty diapers, to lend a hand in cleaning up a kitchen, or to take out the trash, freeing people to spend more time on the activities they enjoy.”Read more