杏吧原创

WHEN Hugo Elias was eight, rather than make him set the table for dinner, his dad would teach him how to wire a circuit with a knife and fork. By the time he was 14, Hugo had joined the local robot club, which met every Wednesday evening to tinker with robots and discuss the group鈥檚 grand visions for the future.

Somehow, in 1999, this melting pot of ideas became the , allowing the friends to turn their hobby into a job. Today, the company makes everything from a pigeon-feeding robot for the BBC to bespoke robotic furniture for a rich oil sheik who fancied a James Bond-style pad. Their main product is the Shadow Dextrous Hand, a robotic hand claimed to be as dextrous as a human one. Capable of 24 different movements, it comes complete with touch sensors, 鈥渁ir muscles鈥� and fingernails. Their customers include the Ministry of Defence and NASA, who could use it to perform bomb disposal operations or handle toxic waste.

鈥淭o do well in robotics, you need to be able to do a bit of everything as it鈥檚 so integrated,鈥� says Hugo. For him, a typical day includes designing mechanical parts on a computer-aided design program, testing prototypes, writing software, wiring electronics, and researching new ideas. Hugo has a degree in computer science and maths from the University of York but reckons this is one job where your academic qualifications are less important than practical experience. 鈥淢y degree didn鈥檛 qualify me to do my job. Practically everything can be self-taught or learned on the job,鈥� he says. 鈥淲e have seen lots of interns pass through who are good academically but don鈥檛 know how to apply those skills to the real world.鈥�

The best piece of advice Hugo can give budding robot developers is to build a portfolio of projects that you have been involved with. 鈥淚鈥檓 interested in seeing what projects people have worked on in their own time 鈥� competitions, and projects they have done for themselves or for their thesis,鈥� he says.

For Hugo, building his portfolio meant taking part in competitions such as Robot Wars. He reached his heat鈥檚 final in series one, with a machine called 鈥淲edgehog鈥�, which used a pickaxe to eviscerate its opponents.

Although each project takes a long time to complete, and can be set back by small mistakes, Hugo still regards his career as 鈥減lay鈥� rather than work. 鈥淚f I won the lottery, I would still be doing this,鈥� he says. 鈥淭he best bit is delivering something to a customer that they are really happy with.鈥�

聯You can earn 拢20,000 to 拢50,000 working at Shadow Robot Company, although there鈥檚 always the chance you could strike it lucky with one of your own inventions and make millions聰