Enjoy a video of Boston Dynamics’ new robot doing chores and slipping on banana peels
Boston Dynamics, the company behind some of the most impressively terrifying and terrifyingly impressive robots of the past decade, is demonstrating its softer side with a video showcasing the Alphabet-owned firm’s latest creation.
The SpotMini is a sort of tiny robot giraffe capable of an impressive battery of skills, demonstrated in the video by jaunting up a flight of stairs, putting dishes in the dishwasher and (somewhat begrudgingly) delivering a can of soda.
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The robot is both more adorable (in that David Lynch directing a Transformers movie kind of way) and significantly smaller and lighter than the firm’s other offerings, weighing “55 pounds dripping wet” or 65, if you add on that arm/head combo.
The non-hydraulic mini version of the company’s Spot robot runs for 90 minutes on a charge and sports a slew of different sensors including depth cameras and a a solid state gyro to help it move around and interact with its environment. The bot also features a level of autonomy for certain tasks – though some human guidance is also required to get the job done.
The plucky robot is also pretty adept at recovering from a comedic banana peel-induced spill, as well.
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