Last time we saw DARPA’s Autonomous Robotic Manipulation testbed robot, it grabbed one of our cameras by the face. That was fun, but it’s not especially practical. Now, this—this is practical: using some low-cost (sub-$3,000) hands from iRobot and Sandia National Labs, the robot can now autonomously use tools to mostly change a car tire.

A bit of an abrupt ending, perhaps, but as far as roboticists are concerned, if bolting a wheel onto a car is just unbolting it run backwards, solving one means they’ve solved the other. For the record, though, they’re still working on getting the bolts threaded back onto the nuts. [Read More]