Dance

Robots can already flip burgers, build cars, and perform surgery ... but we keep making them dance. Here's a little "evolution of robot dance" over the last 25 years or so.

Chinese robotics company Unitree has shown 16 of its H1 robots busting moves alongside human dancers at a Spring Festival Gala event. They not only danced in sync, but each of them also flawlessly spun and caught a handkerchief in the air.

Singapore company Fourier Intelligence has released a video showing at least a dozen of its GR-1 humanoids, set for customer delivery this year. But while the GR-1 might have the best hips in robotics, it ain't gonna win any rug-cutting contests.

The Mictic body instrument is a pair of motion-sensing wristbands that connect to your phone via Bluetooth and then create music to match your movements, giving you the chance to play weird air-instruments, or generate a custom soundtrack for your dance moves.

Boston Dynamics is having a busy week, hot on the heels of its video showing Atlas mastering parkour, and the four-legged Spot wandering construction sites, it has released another video. This one unveils a lighter side to its robots, with Spot dropping some impressive dance moves to Uptown Funk.

​A new Guinness World Record was recently set in China when 1,069 simultaneously completed a choreographed dance routine. This was the third time in twelve months the world record for “most robots dancing simultaneously” has been broken.

Point Motion is a new motion sensing system that lets you create music through the movement of your body. Initially available as a package containing both the software and a wireless camera, it will also work with existing webcams.

Members of the Input Devices and Music Interaction Lab at McGill University have collaborated with a choreographer, a composer, dancers and musicians to create three groups of sensor-packed, internally-lit digital music controllers that attach to a dancer's costume.

Robotics developer Falkor Systems has developed a dance piece in which a human dancer performs with an autonomous AR Drone quadcopter.

Tosy transforming speaker becomes a robot that dances along with your music.

TOSY is launching two new toy robots, one of which dances to the beat of user-supplied music, and one of which can draw sketches.

The Nissan Juke Box is a specially designed Juke with a massive integrated sound system.