They used off-the-shelf elements to cobble together robots with extra reasonable value tags in the tens, not hundreds, of 1000’s. But new, cheaper robots are allowing more researchers to do cool stuff. A new robotic known as Stretch, developed by startup Hello Robot, launched in the course of the pandemic with a a lot more affordable price ticket of around $18,000 and a weight of fifty pounds. It has a small cell base, a stick with a digital camera dangling off it, an adjustable arm featuring a gripper with suction cups on the ends, and it may be controlled with…

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