Dennis Hong and his students design (设计) human-like robots. This includes a cooking robot called Project YORI. YORI is only the latest of Hong’s robot inventions. There’s DAVID, the world’s first and only car that can be driven by the blind. And SAFFiR, a two-legged robot that can do dangerous work that humans are often unable to do. Hong is finding plenty of work for his robots.

When he was asked about his biggest success, Hong chose the robot called DARwIn-OP. He thought it was one of the most widely used human-like robots for research and education. Hong’s team made DARwIn’s design free for anyone to use. They have seen many projects using the design. And they consider it a gift to the robotics community.

“Many people only want to see our successes and not the failures that came before those, but failure is simply a stepping stone in developing new technology. If you’re too afraid of failure, then you only get to walk on the safer side, and then there’s no innovation (创新),” said Hong. “I tell my students to try breaking the robot. If the robot doesn’t fall and doesn’t break, we don’t get to learn anything.”