Ziro's 'gesture UI' gloves let you build and control robots with a wave

There were two Star Wars robots being controlled with a flick of the wrist at CES Unveiled in Las Vegas on Monday -- but only one was made of cardboard.

Even as Sphero's adorable (and official) BB-8 rolling droid won attention for its new 'Force Band' control system, another familiar android was being sent on tiny missions with a few simple points of a finger. Except this robot, a charmingly knock-off R2-D2, was made of hand-cut pieces of cardboard, and a new modular robotics kit that could provide a platform for a whole new type of innovation.

This R2-D2 was powered by Ziro, unveiled at CES as the world's first hand-controlled, modular robotics education system. The kit connects a series of simple, wireless robotic blocks -- each capable of twisting (like a wheel axle) and bending (like an arm) -- to a glove filled with intelligent sensors. By combining the blocks using more or less anything you might have to hand, from Lego to spare containers and wheels, users can create complex, engaging robots without having to write a single line of code.

The concept, according to its makers ZeroUI, is to allow children to experiment with making and controlling machines in an entirely instinctive way, turning robotics into a process as tactile and fun as building a go-cart or a treehouse. Put together a Mars rover-style robot, and spin your hand, and the robot will spin. Build a robot arm and bend your fingers, and the arm will bend.

A smartphone app will make it possible to code more complex machines, too. But the core idea, according to chief scientist Karthik Ramani, a former professor of mechanical engineering at Purdue and a co-founder at visual search engine VizSeek, is to open up access to building robots to those who would never before think it was for them.

"Using gestures to control things is very natural, not just for robots but for the entire future of technology. We want kids to come out of phones and tablets and into the physical world," he tells WIRED. "You don't have to learn. You're not looking at a controller."

In practice it's engaging, but still rough: the glove is bright and responsive, but is clearly an early prototype. Still as a proof of concept it's hard to deny that building a robot dinosaur and telling it to fly with a clasp of your hand is anything but extremely fun. Ziro will launch on crowdfunding platform IndieGoGo at first, with a two module and glove kit and a four module kit, which also comes with parts for the rover, a rolling droid and a robot dog.

Eventually, Ramani wants to make it possible for the gesture controls to be attached directly to the skin -- so the robots could be controlled with no visible interface at all. This could also have applications for augmented and virtual reality systems like Microsoft's Hololens, which will also need new types of control interfaces.

"Hand-on-flat, we believe, is the past," he said. "We believe the future is 'hand-in-space'."

Ziro, which Ramani said is backed by the American National Science Foundation and the Purdue Research Foundation, also plans to develop new modules, including an 'extending' unit, to make new types of machines and movement possible.

"You can build what you want out of your imagination," he says. "There are many directions this is going to go."

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