• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Departments
    • Aerospace Engineering
    • Bioengineering
    • Civil and Environmental Engineering
    • Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences
    • Engineering Science
    • Industrial Engineering and Operations Research
    • Materials Science and Engineering
    • Mechanical Engineering
    • Nuclear Engineering
  • News
    • Berkeley Engineer magazine
    • Social media
    • News videos
    • News digest (email)
    • Press kit
  • Events
    • Events calendar
    • Homecoming
    • Cal Day
    • > Cal Day 2023 events
    • Commencement
    • View from the Top
    • Kuh Lecture Series
    • Minner Lecture
  • College directory
  • For staff & faculty
Berkeley Engineering

Educating leaders. Creating knowledge. Serving society.

  • About
    • Facts & figures
    • Rankings
    • Mission & values
    • Equity & inclusion
    • Voices of Berkeley Engineering
    • Leadership team
    • Milestones
    • Facilities
    • Maps
  • Admissions
    • Undergraduate admissions
    • Graduate admissions
    • Visit
    • Maps
    • Admissions events
    • K-12 outreach
  • Academics
    • Undergraduate programs
    • Majors & minors
    • Undergraduate Guide
    • Graduate programs
    • Graduate Guide
    • Innovation & entrepreneurship
    • Kresge Engineering Library
    • International programs
    • Executive education
  • Students
    • Advising & counseling
    • Programs
    • Academic support
    • Student life
    • Wellness & inclusion
    • Undergraduate Guide
    • Degree requirements
    • Forms & petitions
    • Resources
  • Research & faculty
    • Centers & institutes
    • Undergrad research
    • Faculty
  • Connect
    • Alumni
    • Industry
    • Give
    • Stay in touch
Home > News > Dash Robotics
DASH robot components

Dash Robotics

Spring 2015 issue
May 1, 2015 by Paul Preuss
This article appeared in Berkeley Engineer magazine, Spring 2015

design team | Paul Birkmeyer / Andrew Gillies / Nick Kohut

The Dash Robotics team came together as graduate students in EECS’s Biomimetic Millisystems Lab, creating minirobots inspired by birds that fly; geckos that climb straight up walls and cross ceilings upside down; and fast, agile, nearly unbreakable cockroaches. It was Paul Birkmeyer’s idea to make a cockroach-like — but much cuter — remote-controlled running robot, its structural parts cut from a flat sandwich of flexible plastic and poster board. Teammate Nick Kohut says that when they put on demonstrations at middle schools, “The kids went nuts.” An educational-toy startup was born, hampered only because “we’re engineers; we could do lots of stuff, but we had no business experience.” The Foundry@CITRIS connected the dots with advice, seed money and access to work space and rapid prototyping. Then it came time to get formal: each member jotted down, in secret, who should do what. They agreed perfectly, says Kohut, who became CEO and handles external relations. Birkmeyer is the CTO, and Andrew Gillies the COO, in charge of product development. Crowdfunding supported the first 1,000 Dashes, which “fold up like origami” from a flat sheet for easy assembly and feature reprogrammable, Arduino-compatible circuitry; they’re fun, sophisticated and, at $50 each, a bargain.

Topics: , Design, Devices & inventions, EECS, Robotics & AIStudents
  • Contact
  • Give
  • Privacy
  • UC Berkeley
  • Accessibility
  • Nondiscrimination
  • instagram
  • twitter
  • linkedin
  • facebook
  • youtube
© 2023 UC Regents