Kimate Richards

Kimate Richards is the research object this week: mechatronic engineer, former AWS strategic architect in spatial computing and embodied AI, university advisor, and founder of 10 Things. Kimate shares how robotics is changing in real time: the steep technical on-ramp that still exists today, why inverse kinematics and low-level systems knowledge may soon recede for most builders, and how generative AI is turning more engineers into idea people while simulation and code generation take on the heavy lift.

He talks about education, shifting job paths from computer science into robotics, and why human judgment — especially around testing, failure modes, and what a system is actually for — still matters. We explore the human side of physical AI: how robots could reshape daily life, work, and even expectations of relationships; why consumer robotics needs more than engineering; and how immersive experiences might help people reconnect instead of drifting further into screens.

The conversation also touches on responsibility — what we choose to build, and what those machines quietly teach us to expect from each other. This episode grounds the New Arc vision in practical robotics and the human questions that come with putting intelligent machines into real spaces.

Read this as a research object, not a résumé. Story still has to lead. Performance has to be directed. Mechanism comes last, or it is a science-fair.