Chris Kudla: A Humanoid to Hug,‘ Just Right’ Level of Human | Turn the Lens Ep53
Release Date: 02/15/2026
Werner Kraus: Clean Room Humanoids, Got Particles? Get Certified | Turn the Lens Ep54
Turn the Lens with Jeff Frick
Werner Kraus leads robotics research at Fraunhofer IPA, where 1,000 engineers work on production systems and the unglamorous infrastructure that makes humanoids commercially viable: standards. Not the headline-grabbing demos, but the 30-40 tests required before a robot can enter a semiconductor clean room. The certification processes that determine if particle emissions from gear grease will contaminate pharmaceuticals. The biomechanical measurements proving that 500 Newtons of collision force is 3x too high for human safety. Standards enable commercialization. Without them, you can't get...
info_outline
Chris Kudla: A Humanoid to Hug,‘ Just Right’ Level of Human | Turn the Lens Ep53
Turn the Lens with Jeff Frick
Chris Kudla, Co-Founder and CEO of Mind Children, explains why his company is building social humanoid robots instead of utility workers. While most humanoids focus on warehouse tasks and manufacturing, Mind Children is tackling the harder problem: creating robots for education, healthcare, hospitality, and elder care—applications where empathy and emotional connection matter most. In this conversation from Humanoids Summit 2025, Chris walks through the challenging engineering problem of avoiding the "Uncanny Valley"—that unsettling feeling when robots look almost, but not quite, human. He...
info_outline
Joe Michaels: Teleoperation, Controlling Complex Robots By Feel | Turn the Lens Ep52
Turn the Lens with Jeff Frick
Joe Michaels, SVP of Sales and Marketing at 1HMX, explains why haptic feedback and teleoperation are critical for training humanoid robots. While synthetic data and video help robots learn basics, the fine-tuning that makes them truly functional comes from human operators using advanced haptic gloves with 135 points of tactile feedback. In this conversation from Humanoids Summit 2025, Joe walks through how HaptX's microfluidic technology creates realistic touch sensations, why video training alone can't handle dexterous manipulation, and how the newly announced Nexus NX1 full-body system...
info_outline
Evan Wineland: Deploying is the Point. Affordable Robots that Work | Turn the Lens Ep51
Turn the Lens with Jeff Frick
Evan Wineland and his co-founder started Weave Robotics with a principle that cuts through the industry's typical timeline: "Deploying is the point. It is the strategy. It is the value." They incorporated in late 2024, had a proof of concept by mid-year, and were shipping paid deployments by late 2025. Just over a year from founding to working robots earning their keep in San Francisco laundromats. I caught Evan at Humanoids Summit 2025 at the Computer History Museum, then headed up to Sea Breeze Laundromat on Castro Street to see one of Weave's robots actually working. Not a demo. Not a...
info_outline
Jeremy Fishel: Nature's Best Manipulator, Man's Best Controller: Hands | Turn the Lens Ep50
Turn the Lens with Jeff Frick
Jeremy Fishel, Principal Scientist at Sanctuary AI, explores why human hands remain robotics' greatest challenge and most important breakthrough opportunity. With nearly two decades of research in tactile sensing, dexterity, and manipulation, Jeremy brings unique insights into why replicating the human hand is exponentially harder than achieving robot vision or locomotion. He discusses a surprising control paradox: humans struggle to master simple machines like excavators (4 degrees of freedom) yet effortlessly control the complexity of our hands and arms (50+ degrees of freedom). The answer...
info_outline
Jeff Burnstein: Robotics Imperative, Standards, National Strategy | Turn the Lens Ep49
Turn the Lens with Jeff Frick
Jeff Burnstein, President of the Association for Advancing Automation (A3), reveals why eight countries have national robotics strategies while America doesn't—and what four decades of industrial robot history teaches us about humanoid adoption. In this interview from Humanoids Summit SV 2025, Jeff explains the critical role of safety standards in commercialization, why Japan's 1960s strategy created sustained leadership while China dominates today, and how A3 is reframing "robotics" as "embodied AI" to gain traction in Washington D.C. Key Topics: • Why national robotics strategies drive...
info_outline
Ed Colgate: Soft Hands, Dexterous Robots | Turn the Lens Ep48
Turn the Lens with Jeff Frick
Ed Colgate, Northwestern University, and Director of the HAND ERC reveals why the secret to dexterous manipulation isn't precision engineering, but something surprisingly simple: softness and large contact areas. In this conversation from Humanoids Summit 2025, Ed explains the fundamental difference between human and robot manipulation, how AI finally enables control of complex hands, and why artificial muscles might solve the chronic overheating problem. Key Topics: • Why large soft contact areas matter more than finger articulation • How softness enables sensing and control, not just...
info_outline
Nic Radford: Declining Labor, Generalizable Skills, Ready Market | Turn the Lens Ep47
Turn the Lens with Jeff Frick
Nic Radford, Co-founder and CEO of Persona AI, sits down with Jeff Frick at Humanoids Summit 2025 (presented by ALM Ventures) to unpack a hard truth: robots aren't difficult to build—they're difficult to make useful. Radford's career arc reads like a tour of extreme environments: NASA space robotics, deep ocean exploration, and now shipbuilding automation. Each demanded solving communication, distance, and harsh conditions. This time, he's focused squarely on commercial viability from the start. His framework for finding the right market is brilliant: look beyond the traditional "3Ds"...
info_outline
Pete Florence: Generalist, Scaling Laws, Train One Improve All | Turn the Lens Ep46
Turn the Lens with Jeff Frick
What if training a robot to do ONE thing automatically made it better at EVERYTHING? Pete Florence, Co-founder & CEO of Generalist and former Google DeepMind Senior Research Scientist, joins Jeff Frick at Humanoids Summit 2025 to reveal a breakthrough that fundamentally changes how we think about robot intelligence. The big discovery? Robotics has finally found its scaling laws—just like large language models. At 7 billion parameters, models cross an "intelligence threshold" where more data predictably equals more intelligence. No more hitting walls. No more plateaus. Just continuous...
info_outline
Stop the Slop: Five AI Fundamentals, Smarter Prompts, Real Results | Turn the Lens Ep45
Turn the Lens with Jeff Frick
Five game-changing AI tips from my training with Kyle "KMo" Moschetto. Discover the RGCOA framework for prompt engineering, why paying for ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini is essential for serious work, and how understanding tokens, context windows, and temperature settings can dramatically improve your results. Practical, tested insights you can apply immediately to get more from generative AI tools. Stop the Slop: Five AI Fundamentals, Smarter Prompts, Real Results | Turn the Lens with Jeff Frick Ep 45 Transcript and Show Notes
info_outlineChris Kudla, Co-Founder and CEO of Mind Children, explains why his company is building social humanoid robots instead of utility workers. While most humanoids focus on warehouse tasks and manufacturing, Mind Children is tackling the harder problem: creating robots for education, healthcare, hospitality, and elder care—applications where empathy and emotional connection matter most.
In this conversation from Humanoids Summit 2025, Chris walks through the challenging engineering problem of avoiding the "Uncanny Valley"—that unsettling feeling when robots look almost, but not quite, human. He explains Mind Children's deliberate design choices for their prototype Codey: a 3-foot tall robot with a gray silicone face, nine servo motors creating expressions, and proportions intentionally kept away from human-like features to stay "just right."
KEY TOPICS:
-
Why social humanoids require different engineering than utility robots
-
The Uncanny Valley phenomenon and strategies to avoid it
-
Codey's animatronic face: 9 servo motors with silicone skin
-
How children naturally engage with robots versus screens
-
Teachers using humanoids as in-class assistants for breakout sessions
-
Students teaching concepts back to Codey to reinforce learning
-
The comfort animal analogy: empowering workers, not replacing them
-
Spinning off from SingularityNET's open-source AI research
-
MVP roadmap: 10-30 pilot units by late 2026
STANDOUT QUOTES: "We're building a social humanoid robot. Everything revolves around human interaction—education, health care, hospitality—applications where empathy really matters."
"When we put Codey in front of children, they just run up and want to talk to him. They're not looking at a screen—they're actually communicating in the real world."
"We made the face gray. A gray face is not very human, but it still maintains emotional expressiveness while staying as far away from the Uncanny Valley as we can be."
"A really effective learning method is for the student to teach it back to someone else. Students could actually teach Codey, and that reinforces their own learning."
ABOUT CHRIS KUDLA: Chris Kudla is Co-Founder and CEO of Mind Children, leading development of empathetic humanoid robots for social applications. The company originated as a spinoff from SingularityNET, an open-source, decentralized AI research organization focused on beneficial AI development. Mind Children is currently mid-seed round with plans to deploy pilot units in education and healthcare settings by late 2026.
PRODUCTS DISCUSSED:
-
Codey: 3-foot tall social humanoid with animatronic face, motorized wheeled base, and mechanical arms/legs designed for educational and healthcare applications
This interview was conducted in collaboration with Humanoids Summit SV 2025. Humanoids Summit is organized by ALM Ventures.
LINKS:
Mind Children : https://mindchildren.com
SingularityNET: https://singularitynet.io
Humanoids Summit: https://humanoidssummit.com
Turn the Lens: https://turnthelenspodcast.com
Turn the Lens explores how technology impacts work, organizations, and human potential through in-depth conversations with innovators shaping the future of work.
#HumanoidRobotics #SocialRobots #EmpatheticAI #EducationTechnology #UncannyValley #MindChildren #HumanoidsSummit #FutureOfWork #HumanoidsSummit #TurnTheLens