Our guest this week is Jeff Cardenas, CEO and co-founder of Apptronik. We invited Cardenas onto the show to give us some insight into the $350 million in Series A funding round announced earlier this week for Apptronik.
Apptronik is an Austin TX based humanoid robot manufacturer, and this round of funding is the second largest for a U.S. based humanoid robot startup, after the $650M funding round for Figure a year ago.
Also on the show, we talk with Gene Demaitre, editorial director for The Robot Report, to catch up on what he saw and learned during his trip to the Manifest tradeshow this week.
Finally, we catch on other big news of the week, including Fanuc's recent Q3 fiscal numbers and a new lineup of laser weeders from Carbon Robotics.

How Apptronik is accelerating the humanoid robot race

Featured interview this week: Rob Marshick, Enidine National Sales Manager

The team also covers the news from the week, including the ABB Robotics spinout announcement; the Hugging Face/Pollen Robotics acquisition; and various autonomous trucking and mobile robotics product announcements.

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Our sponsor this week is Enidine.
Established in 1966, Enidine is a premier supplier of highly engineered products to extend equipment life, improve comfort, and increase safety and reliability throughout global industrial end markets.

Enidine’s engineering team has designed custom energy absorption, vibration isolation, and noise attenuation solutions for a wide variety of challenging applications, including automated storage and retrieval systems (ASRS) and factory automation. 

Its wide array of innovative components has proven to be critical to our customers’ success.

Learn more by going to https://www.enidine.com/en-us

Vibration Control  in Manufacturing & Robotics

The Downtime team tackles packaging regulations, manufacturing's labor shortage, and boy band puns. It's gonna be May. 

The Downtime | Episode 2: It's Gonna Be May

This episode comes to you live from the expo floor of the 2025 Robotics Summit and Expo in Boston.
Steve Crowe and Mike Oitzman recap the event and Mike talks to several friends of the show from the show floor.
We catch up with Aaaron Prather, from ASTM. Then Mike talked to Amos Miller from Glidance before his session on personal robotics. Finally, we learn about the upcoming production release from Tatum Robotics founder Samantha Johnson.

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Our sponsor this month is SDP-SI

Let’s dive into the critical role of precision, quality, and alignment in robotics design and assembly.
At SDP/SI, our engineering experts go beyond the standard manufacturing process by reviewing your designs before production, offering cost-effective, space-saving solutions that streamline your entire assembly process.
Discover how we help robotics companies achieve unprecedented accuracy and efficiency.
Don’t miss this opportunity to learn how SDP/SI can elevate your robotics applications. Discover the difference!
Visit https://sdp-si.com/podcast/index.php

Live from the 2025 Robotics Summit

Our guest in this episode is Giovanni Campanella, the Industrial Automation and Robotics General Manager at Texas Instruments (TI).
In this conversation, co-host Mike Oitzman speaks with Campanella about TI's extensive portfolio in industrial automation and robotics, highlighting key product lines and the company's collaboration with various robotics companies. Giovanni shares insights into the challenges of designing humanoid robots, the evolving demands in robotics, and the importance of safety in design. They also explore the expansion of robotics into new sectors such as healthcare and agriculture, and how TI engages with engineers to provide tailored solutions. The conversation concludes with a look at future trends in robotics and the skills needed for systems engineers in this rapidly changing field.
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Our sponsor this week is SDPSI.
Let’s dive into the critical role of precision, quality, and alignment in robotics design and assembly.
At SDP/SI, our engineering experts go beyond the standard manufacturing process by reviewing your designs before production, offering cost-effective, space-saving solutions that streamline your entire assembly process.
Discover how we help robotics companies achieve unprecedented accuracy and efficiency.
Don’t miss this opportunity to learn how SDP/SI can elevate your robotics applications. Discover the difference!
Visit https://sdp-si.com/ to learn more.

Safety and Efficiency in  Robotics Design

The Downtime | Episode 29: Dancing with the Robots

The Downtime is your weekly podcast for manufacturing news, hosted by Sarah Wynn and Sheri Kasprzak from WTWH Media. Thanks for spending your downtime with us!