From Inspiration by R2D2 to Building Her Own Robots

At the All Hands Meeting on January 12th, Girls of Steel was fortunate to have Helen Greiner as a guest speaker!

Ms. Greiner grew up in London, but moved to the United States as a young girl and later attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).  She was inspired to get involved in robotics by the fun other students had with robots in MITs 270 course and earlier by R2D2’s agenda and character.  She even had Dr. Woodie Flowers as one of her professors!  After graduation, Ms. Greiner worked on many different robots, and found working for large companies could come with barriers against releasing new products into the world.  She developed a simple, low cost vacuum robot, which led to co-founding the company iRobot.  Since then, Ms. Greiner has started a drone company (CyPhy (pronounced “sci-fi”) Works) and weeding robot company (https://tertill.com/).  She is also proud of robots she created for military applications.  No robot is her favorite, though, because to her, that would be like having to choose a favorite child.  Ms. Greiner loves to work and invent.  She said, “there’s so much to do in life.”

Ms. Greiner also had plenty of advice to give the team.  She emphasized simplicity, sharing “complexity is the enemy of design” and KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid!).  She offered encouragement as well, saying to “trust your good ideas”, and “brush yourself off and push on.” 

Everyone on the team enjoyed listening to Ms. Greiner.  One member said, “I loved hearing about her really varied career and the ways entrepreneurship and robotics combined for humanitarian missions!”  Another member thought, “The guest speaker was inspirational and very honest about what it was like starting out as an entrepreneur in the young STEM and robotics field.  She made work sound like fun, and that helps to motivate me to pursue a career that I am passionate about.”  

Learn more about Ms. Helen Greiner at the links below:

TedxBoston https://tedxboston.org/speaker/greiner
MIT Featured Alumni http://meche.mit.edu/people/helen-greiner

 photo credit https://www.flickr.com/photos/techcrunch/21418181349