Boston Dynamics is sending off 2020 with its most impressive robot video to date – showing off its entire range dancing to the classic song “Do You Love Me?”. The fun video offers the first glimpse at two Atlas robots working together while also highlighting just how quickly this technology is developing.
Back in 2018 Boston Dynamics released a cute video of its dog-like Spot robot dancing to “Uptown Funk”. The playful video was a fun little demonstration of Spot’s broad range of movements, exciting at the time but very simplistic looking back from the vantage of today. Now the company has stepped things up delivering a long choreographed dance video featuring not only Spot, but two Atlas robots and a special appearance from Handle, a wheeled model.
Released as a kind of New Year’s gift from the company, the video is the first look at two Atlas humanoid robots working together. Atlas, still technically a prototype robot, has demonstrated a stunningly rapid evolution over the past decade from barely being able to walk in 2013, to being allowed to roam tetherless in 2015, completing a spectacular parkour routine just three years later, and finally getting acrobatic last year.
Spot on the other hand is the company’s only currently available commercial product, finally reaching the market earlier this year with a price tag of US$75,000. As well as rocking crisp dance moves the robot dog has been seen herding sheep in New Zealand, helping treat COVID-19 patients, and working on a Norwegian oil rig.
Handle is perhaps the company’s most practical model. First revealed in 2017, the wheeled robot seems designed for pragmatic warehouse uses but, like Atlas, is still not commercially available.
Dancing robot videos are certainly not new but Boston Dynamics has again demonstrated just how far ahead of the pack its technology is, and as an indication of just how incredibly fast this field is evolving, take a look at a Virginia Tech robot dancing to “Gangham Style” back in 2012. The video is only eight years old but it feels like it is from ancient times compared to the new Boston Dynamics work.
