If the dog-like mechanics of MIT’s Mini Cheetah robots have made you uneasy in the past, new footage of their latest excursion will do little to alleviate those fears. The engineering team has taken a pack of the four-legged machines out of the lab for a little playtime, a sight that is both adorable and a little frightening.
As the smaller sibling of MIT’s larger, dog-sized Cheetah robot, the 9-kg (20-lb) Mini Cheetah was unveiled earlier in the year and immediately impressed with an array of lifelike maneuvers. These included an ability to trot across the ground, spin around on the spot, keep its balance when given a firm nudge, pick itself up when knocked down and perform a perfect backflip.
The team has been busy building out a fleet of Mini Cheetahs and last week took nine of them out to MIT’s Killian Court to let them off the leash. Their antics include running across the ground in neat formation, playing a little robo-soccer, trying to push each other over (and succeeding), twisting and turning towards the camera and together nailing a perfectly synchronized backflip.
With fall in full swing, the robots were also buried beneath piles of leaves and made to emerge by way of acrobatics, a dramatic spectacle fittingly captured in slow-motion.
Check out the footage below.
Source: MIT (Youtube)
