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Journalism of Courage
Boston Dynamics robot: Less than a year after Boston Dynamics shared a video of their bipedal robot Atlas doing backflips and freerunning over obstacles, the company has now released a video that shows the robot working on a simulated construction site. In the new video from Boston Dynamics, the robot Atlas interacts with various objects at a simulated construction site. It grasps, carries and tosses tool bags. It clubs stairs, jumps between different levels and even pushes a large wooden block that was in its way before it does an impressive inverted 540-degree flip that engineers at the company are calling “Sick Trick.”
At a glimpse, this video may seem to be a lot less impressive than previous Boston Dynamics videos, which showed robots engaging in cool tricks, parkour and coordinated dance routines. The manipulation tasks that Atlas performed in the new video require it to have a nuanced understanding of its environment. In the new video, the robot had to detect, grip and move objects of different sizes, materials, and weights, but it also had to stay balanced while carrying these objects through the environment.
Even the simplest of movements that humans might take for granted are extremely complicated for a robot to make. For example, when Atlas manipulates a large wooden plank at the beginning of the video, it performs a jump where it turns 180 degrees in the air. This means that the robot’s systems need to account for the plank’s momentum and weight to ensure that it doesn’t tip over.
While some Boston Dynamics robots, like “robodog” Spot and robotic arm Stretch, are commercial products available for sale, Atlas is purely a research platform, according to the company.
