It seems an age already but only last month I was working in Redmond for a week. During this time I got to catch up with former UK colleague Mike Hall now high on the lofty career ladder as Software Archiect for Windows Embedded. Mike showed me a blog post of his I had missed and, well, I've just remembered to pass it on to you all.
Basically, Microsoft's Robotics Studio is making the programming of robots really easy - like even I can do it 'easy' - this in turn is enabling some fabulous developments to move on at a pace. The video Mike pointed me too is of Ubot5 built by a University of Massachusetts Amherst team. The robot is very interesting because it is a a PC platform (running Windows XP/Embedded) and balances on two wheels. The students took just two days getting the robot up and running using Robotics Studio! I just can't wait until some of the UK First Lego League team members get to the point were they are building stuff like this - its going to be awesome!
Here's the video, and here's the link to Mike's original blog post.
Video: UBot5 - Self Balancing Robot using Microsoft Robotics Studio