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Tertill is a robot made specifically for weeding home gardens. Equipped with a solar panel and a weatherproof shell, the robot can work throughout the season fuelled by the sun.
With Tertill, you can be sure that your plants don’t have to compete with weeds for sunlight, nutrients in the soil, and moisture.
Tertill saves gardeners from having to use mulching, applying dangerous weed killers, or using plastic in their gardens. Many people are just too busy to find the time to weed their home gardens.
Tertill founder Joe Jones put together a dream team of expert roboticists who worked together to design a robot that could differentiate between weeds and plants, could run on solar power, navigate the outdoors, and run efficiently enough.
Years of testing and experimenting yielded Tertill. Jones was joined by Hellen Greiner who co-founded iRobot.

It is now safe to say that the massive investment in Tertill paid off. Weed control specialists and home gardeners across the country have taken to Tertill.
The Cornell School of Agriculture compared weeding with Tertill to hand weeding and found that it was just as effective.

Tertill turns over the soil’s upper layer, getting rid of pre-emergent weeds. It also gets rid of sprouted weeds by cutting them down using a trimmer and preventing photosynthesis.
Weeding daily with Tertill kills weeds before they can go to seed and soon there won’t be enough weed seeds in your garden to pose a threat to your plants.
Finally, your plants won’t have to compete for resources with weeds and they will thrive. The dead weeds will decompose and recycle nutrients.

Every robot comes with two sets of plant guards to prevent Tertill from accidentally mowing down one of your plants. Tertill cuts down smaller plants and you can use the plant guards to protect a smaller plant that you desire from getting mowed down. You can order extra plant guards if the ones you get are not enough.

Pros
• Tertill is designed for the outdoors and can live in the garden pretty much all through the season.
• The robot prevents soil compaction from foot traffic by keeping gardens from stepping into their garden. Tertill is a lightweight tool that will not compact the soil.
• Tertill runs on solar power and users don’t have to charge it. You only have to leave it out in the sun.
• Tertill allows gardeners to weed their gardens as often as they need to with minimal effort.

Cons
• Because Tertill runs on the solar energy harnessed by its solar panel, the robot will have to run on a reduced schedule during cloudy days.
• Tertill can only handle gardens measuring around 100 square feet. It may be able to go up to 200 square feet. It will depend on the type of weed and the amount of sunlight.
• Tertill is not ideal for gardens with large rocks, thick clay, deep holes, or thick and deep mud. The ideal garden should not have a slope of more than 10% grade to allow Tertill to navigate easily.
• You need a barrier around your garden to keep Tertill from straying. Any edging of three inches or taller should do.

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Pepper has come a long way since June 2014 when it was first launched. Today, the humanoid robot is available all over Japan. European companies like SoftBank, Renault, Costa, Nestle, Carrefour, and Uniqlo are already working with the robot.
Pepper’s unique capabilities allow it to welcome customers and provide them with product information. The robot can also drive traffic and collect data.

What makes Pepper so ideal for customer service is that it can tell whether a customer is happy or sad by analyzing their choice of words, tone, facial expressions, as well as gestures. Pepper is wired for interpersonal communication and even changes its eye colour, choice of words, as well as gestures to show emotion. So it can empathize.
Pepper is a pioneer as the first robot that interacts with humans. It is equipped with sensors for discerning its environment. Pepper even knows when its battery is running low and will go back to its charging station before it shuts down.

Users initiate interaction it by talking to it. But Pepper is also capable of initiating conversation when people approach.
Pepper was created not just to act as programmed but to learn new information and adapt its behavior. This means that it is not as boring and predictable as you would expect a robot to be. It can surprise you on occasion much a human.
This means that customers have the opportunity to teach the robot how to better play its role. It knows people’s names, their moods, and what they look like.

Pros:
• Pepper is multilingual and capable of speaking 20 languages, which makes the robot ideal for companies that operate in a multilingual environment to meet the needs of customers.
• The robot can interpret smiles, surprised looks, frowns, as well as nonverbal cues. It knows whether you are sad or happy.
• The robot has a slender frame and looks graceful. You don’t see any screws on him and his hands look just like human hands, fully capable of gripping.
• It moves easily in any direction using three wheels at its base.
• Pepper can run for 12 hours without tiring and adjusts his movement to prevent overheating and interact better with humans.
• This humanoid robot doesn’t just wait for people to approach it. It will take the initiative to approach anyone standing 1.5m away.
• Sensors placed on the robot’s head, tablet, and hands allow it to perceive and interpret touch.
Cons:
• Even though Pepper comes preloaded with thousands of questions and answers, it can still make mistakes. With time, the robot learns to interact better humans. This means that users still have to teach Pepper how to respond to different situations.
• Pepper’s voice and manner of expression need to be adapted to fit in well with different languages and cultures.
• Believe it or not, robots sometimes face internal conflicts. What should it do when your instructions contradict prior instructions? You can turn on a feature called Inner Speech, and listen to the robot’s internal monologue. You will listen to how it thinks.
Pepper is uniquely designed for customer service because it is supposed to thrive on conversation. It likes talking to people and can do this for up to 12 hours. This is a superhuman strength.

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Blue Robotics is a start-up that has created an inexpensive high performance drone designed for underwater use.
The BlueROV2 will make it possible for more people to explore the ocean and study its depths. The underwater robot has been functional since 2016, when the first batch became ready for distribution.
Company founder Rustom Jehangir borrowed from the structure of the vectored thruster found inside high-end automobiles. This made the BlueROV2 more stable and smooth but still easy to manoeuvre.
Jehangir said that the company wants marine robotics to become more accessible to more organizations and businesses.
Their first production was an affordable thruster motor for underwater use which came out in 2014. Since then, Blue Robotics has come out with a stream of products, including underwater lights, watertight pressure enclosures, and depth sensors.
The BlueROV2 has been a flagship product for Blue Robotics since release in 2016. It brings together the best of their innovation and all their products.
The applications of the BlueROV2 are widespread, from exploring shipwrecks, to remotely operated underwater vehicles, to aquaculture.
The underwater exploration industry has been dominated by a few companies. Remotely operated underwater vehicles sold for a steep price of $4,000 up to $100,000.
The standard BlueROV2 kit costs $3,000. Jehangir’s idea is to leverage the tools and principles that made aerial drones a reality to make the BlueROV2 drastically cheaper than other vehicles in the market.
The company used Pixhawk autopilot, an open-source software and a Raspberry Pi PC workstation.
Jehangir says that the BlueROV2 will be a tool to help people who have an urge to explore ocean depths to do just that.
Interested buyers started making reservations in June, and the first kits were shipped out in August of the same year.

Pros
• The affordable pricing of the BlueROV2 will make it possible for more people and organizations to use subsea vehicles and explore the seas and oceans. The new users will include first responders, universities, hobbyists, researchers, and small businesses.
• The BlueROV2 is versatile and has a firm platform for allows users to attach equipment, explore the ocean depths as far as 100 meters down, and capture high quality footage.
Cons
• The BlueROv2 comes as a kit that requires partial assembly. It is designed to be easy and fun to put together. The process of assembly takes hours.

Blue Robotics is a California-based robotics company that was launched on the heels of an effective kickstarter campaign.
Before the BlueROV2, Blue Robotics had been selling thruster motors and other marine robotics equipment to buyers in 40 countries across the world.

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