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CSIRO’s robotics scientists have a lot to celebrate. They were part of a team that represented Australia in one of the world’s hardest robotics competitions, the DARPA Subterranean Challenge. And they just won silver (and a million dollars).

Written by Azmina Hossain The crown-of-thorns is a venomous starfish that lives in the Great Barrier Reef. Growing up to massive lengths of 80 centimetres and having a body entirely covered in toxic spikes, the starfish is almost indestructible and is a vicious predator. They eat coral, the building blocks of the Great Barrier Reef….

Written by Beth Askham When mysterious lumps of pumice stone washed up on beaches in Tasmania, Australia, Rebecca Carey knew that they must be coming from an underwater volcano. Rebecca is a Tasmanian volcanologist (someone who studies volcanos), and she had been tracking the travelling pumice for more than a year.

Written by Julia Cleghorn Researchers have found a better way to study penguin behaviour – send in a remote-controlled rover! Compared with researchers collecting data themselves, rovers were found to be less disruptive to the colony, less stressful for the penguins, and sometimes a whole lot cuter to watch!

Robots have been a popular part of science fiction for years. While robots that can think and feel like humans are still just a fantasy, robotic systems are already having an impact on our lives. CSIRO runs one of the largest robotics research centres in the world, the Autonomous Systems Laboratory. Instead of trying to…