2007 November 6th - Shadow Hand featured in ABN AMRO advert

Production company Bonkers b.v. were looking for a state-of-the-art robot hand for an advert they were doing for ABN AMRO. They contacted the Shadow team, and flew a Hand and engineers over to Amsterdam for the filming. Sadly the video is no longer available to view.

2006 August 17th - BBC2 Dragon's Den

The Prize Winning Shadow Robot Company in Islington is featured on the BBC TV program Dragon's Den this coming Thursday evening at 8pm (17 August 06) on BBC2. Stephen Morfey, Marc de Gentile-Williams, and Rich Walker made the company's pitch for more funding.

During the summer the company was overwhelmed by enquiries for its Dextrous Robotic Hand, and are actively seeking further investment.

The Dextrous Hand is sold to universities, research institutes, and hospitals who have an interest in advanced robotics. The company has sold hands to NASA, Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania, and Bielefeld University in Germany.

Dramatically increased orders from leading institutions means the company needs to increase its capacity. "It is not enough for the company of produce more prototypes", said Richard Greenhill, the Managing Director. He believes they need more capital investment to develop the manufacturing end of the business.

The Shadow Robot Company is actively looking for partners with an enthusiasm for cutting edge design and engineering projects.

However, the BBC's Dragons were reluctant to invest in a company focused on research and development, and they felt that The Shadow Robot Company was ideal for government sponsorship. "I'm not confident you have a mass product," charged Mr. Bannatyne.

The Company has short term and long term development plans in the area of advanced robotics and is seeking investors with imagination, flare, and experience of the advanced robotics market.

"Our immediate prospects are huge," says Alan Madsen, Marketing Director. "And the current interest shown in The Dextrous Hands by Universities, Research Institutes, and Corporations is overwhleming."

1999 - BBC1 Tomorrow's World

Below is the basic tenor of the TV programme:

Ironing Robot:

How do you get a robot to do the ironing? We asked one of the UK's top robotic firms to build us one.
In the last Tomorrow's World of 1999, we asked you what domestic task you would most like to hand over to a robot in the new millennium. Fifty percent of you voted for ironing so we asked one of the UK's top robotic firms to build one for us.
They built a simple robot that picks up the iron very like us using muscles: rubber tubes surrounded by a knitted mesh which when inflated with air expand width ways and contract lengthways pulling the limb towards the muscle. The robot uses pairs of opposing muscles to move its arm from side to side, back and forth and up and down, just like a human.
The team are now working on the muscles in miniature to make a hand. However, it will still be ten to fifteen years before a robot has the processing power to really take on the task, according to inventor Richard Greenhill. "I mean beating Kasparov at chess is easy peasy - this is more difficult," he says.