”Well designed machines are sexy!”

Join me for Episode 10 of the podcast. This time my guest is the legendary Dennis Hong, Professor of Robotics at the University of California, Los Angeles.

The Washington Post called him the Leonardo da Vinci of robotics, he is the go-to expert whenever Hollywood needs a robot, and he has appeared on shows like MasterChef USA and Magic for Humans. Dennis is truly one of the few remaining modern polymaths, and it was a pleasure to talk with him not only about robotics, but also about his expert-level knowledge in fields as diverse as magic, cooking, and art.

For me, Episode 10 was definitely 10/10 on the fun scale. Go watch it now!

Outline

• 02:23 Childhood in USA and Korea
• 07:45 Academic Career
• 13:06 Car For The Visual Impaired
• 19:10 RoboCup World Champion
• 22:58 Pioneering Breakthrough Technology
• 25:22 Becoming An Artist
• 29:56 Hollywood and Robotics
• 31:47 Reinforcement Learning vs. MPC for Locomotion
• 35:50 Cooking and MasterChef USA
• 39:17 Automatic Ghost Kitchen
• 43:32 Becoming a Magician
• 46:35 Live Magic Trick
• 48:19 On Making People Happy

Episode Links

• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/7auQAJvcCXdVFomgSX5tC3?si=eWVM6LP5TSGEKm43m1341g
• Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dennis-hong-from-hollywood-robots-to-magic-art-and/id1812910570?i=1000769489626
• X: https://x.com/andreas_orthey/status/2058916537868726453
• Robotics and Mechanisms Laboratory (RoMeLa): https://www.romela.org/
• Dennis Hong's Website: https://samueli.ucla.edu/people/dennis-hong/
• Dennis Hong's TED Talks: https://www.ted.com/speakers/dennis_hong
• Dennis Hong on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hong.dennis/

Podcast Links

• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/andreasorthey
• X/Twitter: https://x.com/andreas_orthey
• Spotify: https://creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/andreasorthey/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aorthey/
• Support: https://buymeacoffee.com/aorthey
• Personal Website: https://aorthey.com
• Podcast Website: https://aorthey.com/src/podcast