Willow Garage is a Silicon Valley start-up company known in the world of robotics as introducing one of the first robots capable of wide range functioning. As most robots perform on a high skill level with just one single, focused task, their first robot, the two-armed PR2 could do anything from picking things up off the floor to serving you a drink. However, despite the roaring sounds of robotics fans, the dude cost a whopping $400,000. But don’t run away yet! Things have gotten way more exciting, guys. The spinoff they have announced this week has come from Willow’s newest company, Unbounded Robotics, and it's their new robot named the UBR-1. Smaller, one-armed, far less expensive but highly efficient, it has been built to be a far more sophisticated platform than it’s predecessor. It is well suited for a variety of potential customers in mind, from aiding academic researchers to simple automate tasks such as stocking shelves, inspecting products or logging production.

 
UBR-1 is dubbed a mobile manipulation platform. This means the guy can see where he is going, move himself about, and of course, manipulate objects. His single arm, along with a gripper, is capable of seven different degrees of freedom to perform many tasks, being a huge part of taking off costs without jeopardizing performance. Also, he has a telescoping spine allowing him to reach a maximum of 52 inches! To do what he does, he’s packed with a 4th gen Intel Core i5 CPU with 8 GB of RAM and 120 GB hard drive, also running open-source ROS software developed by Willow. The controlling aspect of UBR-1 happens in two ways, there is the PS3 controller option as well as the use of software developed just for him. Also equipped with a visual interface app, Moveit!, which is for directing his motions. The app has a drag and drop interface which communicates with robotic sensors, and with that data the user is given a 3D model of the robot in his environment. This is helpful because the user can then test how he wants to direct UBR-1 to move before actually telling him “do it”.

 
The price. The price is an amazing one-tenth the cost of the PR2 predecessor, $35,000. Unbounded Robotics stated that because the team had leverage from years of robotic experience, they better comprehended how to manifest a design philosophy based on lowering cost. Besides saving equipment costs by only needing and having a single arm, the company incorporated commodity sensors, such as a 3D camera (who's technology is based upon Microsoft’s $150 Kinect), rather than the PRS’s $5,000 worth of cameras. Smart folks they are, and their plan is to begin taking orders before the end of 2013.