Stanford students build robots to help around the house

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PALO ALTO, California ( KCRA ) — Stanford University unveiled a new robotics laboratory this week where students are building robots to do a variety of tasks. Many of them are being programed to do household chores such as make the bed, pick up dirty laundry and cook in the kitchen.

"This is the robotics of the future," said Oussama Khatib, director of the Stanford Robotics Laboratory. "Our mission is to develop robotics for humans and for the planet."

The lab was divided into several different departments. Some have robots focused on household chores.

"People who have trouble or get tired a lot, and it is physically a lot of excursions for them to clean up the house, this would be a very, very good help," said Rika Antonova, a postdoctoral scholar.

Others might become the latest breakthrough in medical technology. Jack Bernardo was working on a magnetically powered capsule that can go inside someone's body and deliver medicine or stop a stroke.

"It has a suction power to it," he said. "Strokes in the brain, you can navigate the robot up to there and use that suction force to take apart the clot and move it from where it is."

Other exhibits are focused on developing robots for sea exploration, physical therapy and wildfire study.