The Boston Dynamics Robot Dog has a $225 sibling that follows voice commands

On the one hand, you’ve got incredibly capable AI that has some scary implications for the human race… but on the other hand, you have the Bittle X, an adorable toy robot dog that allows you to befriend, train, and tame technology instead of being afraid of it. A sibling to Petoi’s Bittle robot dog that debuted in 2020, Bittle X comes with a few upgrades, proving that an old dog CAN learn new tricks! Designed to resemble the Boston Dynamics robot dog, the Bittle X is a palm-sized STEM toy that’s perfect for kids, tinkerers, engineers, and people looking to experiment with coding, robotics, IoT(Internet of Things), and AI. It’s entirely open-source, runs on a block-based programming environment, has support for C++/Python programming, and comes with a few extra upgrades that the Bittle lacks, like now being able to follow voice commands, as well as record and program your own voice commands!

Designer: Rongzhong Li

Click Here to Buy Now: $225 $279 (Use Coupon Code “yanko10” to get an additional $10 off). Hurry, deal ends in 48-hours!

Easy to Develop AI, IoT and Robotics Applications for Quadruped Robot Dog

Less of a toy and more of a learning opportunity, the Bittle X was designed to make robotics more accessible to anyone looking to dive into the world of robotics. It comes with a tiny form, small enough to fit in the palm of your hand, but is designed to be incredibly articulate with multiple joints with high-performance servos that allow it to walk, sit, jump, backflip, kick, and even scratch itself like a real dog would! Moreover, its bionic leg construction gives it natural movement, allowing it to sit down, get up, recover from a flipover, and even walk across uneven terrain.

The pint-sized pooch comes in two styles – a pre-assembled kit that works right out of the box, and a construction kit that gives you the joy of being able to put together your own voice-command robot dog from scratch. Assembling the robot doesn’t require much technical knowledge, given that the plastic parts are already molded and easy to assemble with interlocking mechanisms. Once assembled, the Bittle X is ready to play/engage with you and follow your commands. A remote control lets you wirelessly operate your Bittle X, although notably, it also now has support for voice commands, allowing you to tell it to wave hello, give you a handshake, sit, crawl, dig, play dead, and even do a handstand! Right out of the box, the dog has support for 35+ voice commands, along with the ability to store 10 additional voice commands that you can program yourself.

The robot operates on the OpenCat platform, offering endless programming and customization possibilities. It supports block-based programming with Petoi’s Coding Blocks, C++, and Python, making it a versatile tool for users at different learning stages. You can also use the free Petoi Desktop App – Skill Composer to visually create new robot dog skills with ease. The creators, Petoi, even further their commitment towards STEM education by providing free curriculums for anyone looking to learn how to tinker with their Bittle X (and other robot pets). You can find all the necessary resources on Petoi’s OpenCat forum, along with ideas and prompts for experimenting with your robot dogs (like orchestrating robot wars, hosting your own doggy Olympics, and performing more complex challenges like solving mazes), and even a section where Petoi showcases works from other tinkerers playing around with their Bittles.

Underneath that playful exterior, Bittle X is powered by the BiBoard, Petoi’s latest quadruped robot microcontroller, ensuring smooth, coordinated movements. The option to integrate various smart sensors, like the Petoi intelligent camera module, the motion sensor, or the distance sensor, allows you to add depth to its perception and artificial intelligence capabilities via coding, allowing for more advanced interactions, games​​, and robotics competitions. The ESP32-based BiBoard comes with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, serial connections, and voice command support, along with its servos and Li-ion battery providing about an hour of continuous playtime​​​.

The friendly robot dog is designed for all ages above 8 (what you really need is childlike curiosity), and is sure to get along with everyone it meets! Alongside being a robot dog that learns tricks and commands, it’s also rewarding because you get to learn with it, creating a bonding experience that’s not too different from actually playing with and training real pets. The Bittle X starts at $236.99 during Petoi’s holiday sale, but YD readers can grab a nifty $10 discount, bringing the price down to $225. Grab yours now and build your army of loyal minions before the AI takes over!

Click Here to Buy Now: $225 $279 (Use Coupon Code “yanko10” to get an additional $10 off). Hurry, deal ends in 48-hours!

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Boston Dynamics’ designed Atlas can now lift up heavy equipment (and still parkour)

Maybe it comes from watching all these sci-fi series and movies but I still have this fear that years or decades into the future, our robot overlords will rebel and make us humans their slaves. Seeing robots that use artificial intelligence and basically behave like people do not alleviate that fear. Of course that’s just the crazy in me and I know that the robotics industry is doing a lot of interesting and helpful things. We’ll see more advanced prototypes and eventually products that will hopefully not overthrow the human race.

Designer: Boston Dynamics

The Atlas robot was unveiled back in 2021, showing off its parkour and acrobatic moves which are impressive for a robot. Boston Dynamics posted a new video of the more advanced version of this robot and this time it is able to carry around things which will make it more useful for things like factories, construction, even airline baggage handling. Its “hands” are able to pick up objects and then toss them to wherever you program it. It is designed for “heavy lifting tasks” so it will be useful mostly for logistics.

The “hands” of the Atlas robot are actually made up of one fixed finger and a moving finger that are more like a gripper. The video shows the robot throwing a bag of tools to its owner but the lead up to that final action is pretty impressive. It’s able to pick up a plank of wood to help it go up to the scaffolding where he eventually throws up the forgotten bag. And of course, just to show off, it does a few more parkour moves after delivering the package.

The robot is still in the prototype stage and is mainly used for research by Boston Dynamics. But from what we’ve seen in the videos so far, this is very promising for industries that involve tasks like lifting heavy equipment. Well, as long as they do not eventually rise up against its owners, this is something that we can look forward to when it becomes available for businesses and commercial use.

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Kawasaki Bex robot goat is an odd vision for travel and cargo of the future

Who said that robot goats should have all the fun, especially when you can ride on a robot goat or let it carry your bags for you.

Boston Dynamics’ Spot robot had become quite popular in the past few years, especially when the quadruped robot got assigned tasks related to COVID-19 countermeasures. Spot has been famously or infamously labeled as a robot “dog” simply because of its four legs and smaller stature, especially compared to its larger and more nightmare-ish predecessor BigDog. For all its versatility, there are still some things it can’t do, so Kawasaki took inspiration from a different animal to design a robot that could carry not only things but also people on its back.

Designer: Kawasaki

A goat is probably the last animal you’d think of as an inspiration for a human-friendly robot, especially since they’re often portrayed in a negative light. For some cultures, however, goats are used as beasts of burden for carrying cargo, which does go in line with Kawasaki’s vision for its robot, which it named “Bex.” This name was taken from the Ibex, a species of large wild goat that embodies the kind of mobility that the motorcycle maker was aiming for.

Ibexes are famous for climbing mountains with steep slopes to the point that they seem to almost defy the laws of physics. Navigating uneven terrain on four legs is something that quadruped robots like Spot is already able to do and is pretty much a solved problem for most robotics companies. Bex can definitely do it too, but it actually has a trick up its sleeves, or rather down its legs.

When the terrain is flat and smooth, Bex can get down on its knees and roll on wheels rather than galloping to its destination. This creates a better balance for the robot but is also more comfortable for the human riding on its back. And that is the second biggest difference between Spot and Bex, that the latter is actually designed to be ridden by humans.

The prototype’s design is, of course, terribly uncomfortable for riding, which is why it’s still a prototype. Kawasaki also designed Bex to be modular, though, so owners and operators can remove the parts that make it look like a giant goat in favor of components that will increase its carrying capabilities. It’s definitely a strange way to travel or to carry your things, but that’s not exactly worse than having a headless robot dog following you around.

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Hyundai envisions Boston Dynamic’s Spot as your ambassador to Mars in the metaverse




The metaverse will supposedly let us be anywhere we want, and all we need is a robot proxy to explore other planets.

The term “metaverse” has been around long before Facebook’s dramatic rebranding, but its popularity definitely spiked in the past few months thanks to that. The idea of moving around in virtual space and interacting with other people half a world away is as old as the Internet and science fiction, but the possibility of seamlessly blending the real and the digital has only been possible these past years. Now companies are scrambling to get on the metaverse bandwagon, and Hyundai’s ideas include using Spot to be your stand-in for places you wouldn’t otherwise be able to reach.

Designer: Hyundai

Spot is one of the most popular robots in mainstream news and possibly also one of the most infamous. Built to be less horrifying than BigDog, the quadruped robot became Hyundai’s property when the carmaker bought Boston Dynamics. Spot proved to be a hit in the past two years, allowing doctors to safely check up on patients remotely or letting security personnel remind people to practice physical distancing from the safety of a control room.

Hyundai, however, also has another use for Spot, at least in the distant future. In its vision of the metaverse, the robot will act as people’s bodies, eyes, and even hands while exploring places they couldn’t reach. That includes visiting Mars with family and meeting other people who are presumably totally human.

This metaverse version of Spot, however, won’t be like the telepresence robots that are already available today. Spot will be equipped with various sensors that can gather environmental data, like the temperature of a certain object or the strength of a Martian sandstorm. That data can, in turn, be used to let their human controllers feel those exact same events safely on Earth, presuming they’re inside some vehicle or room that can recreate that environment.




Spot is actually just one part of Hyundai’s “metamobility” concept, a concept that includes the things that the company is best known for. Those include self-driving vehicles and other robots that will help humans either go the distance or stay at home while still reaching places. And, of course, Spot will be with humans every step of the way, just like a good robot dog.

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You can buy yourself an open-source, trainable cat-version of the Boston Dynamics robot





A rather adorable cross between a pet and a STEM toy, the Nybble is a small DIY robot feline that you can build and train to follow commands.

Named Nybble, the toy comes from the folks at Petoi (who even built a scaled-down consumer version of the Boston Dynamics dog). Nybble, however, has a body made from laser-cut MDF sheets and runs on its proprietary NyBoard processor, developed specifically for the robotic cat.

Nybble’s architecture makes it a rather nimble, flexible little cat, as it borrows directly from a cat’s skeleton and even builds on its canine predecessor, the Bittle’s design. The cat’s movement and behavior are pretty lifelike, brought about by the 11 servo motors that operate all its joints and the software that lets you make your Nybble sit, stretch, sleep, balance, say hi, and play dead. Try getting your regular cat to follow commands… I dare you.

Click Here to Buy Now: $209

The robot cat comes outfitted with two ultrasonic sensors on its front that act as the robot’s ‘eyes’. It sports a USB input that lets you connect it to a device to tinker around with its open-source code and teach it new tricks (in Scratch, Python, or C++), and even comes with Bluetooth and WiFi dongles as well as an infrared remote controller. Other parts include a holder for two 14500 Li-ion rechargeable 3.7V batteries that give Nybble up to 45 hours of play-time, and even silicone covers for the cat’s feet, to give it friction as well as prevent it from accidentally scratching your furniture.

Built as an exploratory toy, Nybble takes about 4 hours to build from scratch, although its body kit could easily be modified to give it a different character. The cat’s highly extensible with support for Raspberry Pi and Arduino ecosystems, and a whole slew of additional sensors (all available on Petoi’s website) to make your robot cat even more advanced. Just promise us you won’t make it sentient…

Designer: Petoi

Click Here to Buy Now: $209

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Boston Dynamics Spot robot mirrors Mick Jagger’s dance moves to absolute perfection. Watch the video!





To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the British band’s’Tattoo You’ album engineers at Boston Dynamics programmed the versatile Spot robot to mirror the hip-snaking sorcery of Mick Jagger.

Spot, the dynamic robot developed by Boston Dynamics has more tricks up its sleeve than just the usual chores such as quadruped machines venture out on. This time around the highly acclaimed dog robot moves to the Rolling Stones’ 1981 hit “Start Me Up” to unbelievable perfection. Not only that, the lead singer mimicked by Spot is accompanied by other two Spot robots to emulate the moves of Keith Richards, Ronnie Wood, and Charlie Watts!

This is not the first time Spot has surprised the tech world with its swaggy moves – earlier it twerked to the cover “Uptown Funk” and the classic “Do You Love Me?” Boston Dynamics has piqued the interest in such robotic machines worldwide with such creative initiatives, and we are loving it to the core. This is a clear example of the sophistication robots are capable of as the video shows the near-perfect movement and lip-sync (yes the robot actually does that) replicating the human counterpart. The clip begins with a split-screen having Mick Jagger and the solo Spot robot. Then as the dance moves get groovy the other rock band members enter the frame, mirrored by the other Spot robots.

In the video, the robot can be seen using its long neck and arms to mimic the rockstar’s motion. These dance moves further instill our faith in the flexible and stable nature of the incredible machine that’s already performing a variety of roles – things like jobs at Ford’s factory floor or oil rig inspection at BP. You can even buy one if you want, but the price is mind-numbing $74,500.

Designer: Boston Dynamics and Rolling Stone

Domestic Robots are a new frontier for Industrial Designers: Whipsaw CEO, Dan Harden





“We are finally seeing an inflection point in the industry”, says Whipsaw CEO and Principal Designer, Dan Harden as he talks about how robots are slowly entering our households. Back at the beginning of the 2000s, the only robots you could find around the house were probably either toys (RC cars, RoboSapiens), or domestic cleaning robots like the vacuum cleaner or the lawn-mower. Today, home service robots are increasingly becoming an emerging trend, creating a unique new opportunity for designers to establish the identity, personality, form, function, and usability factors of these soon-to-emerge home service robots. “It is one of the most exciting design frontiers since the very founding of our profession”, Harden tells Yanko Design.

The west has been rather slow in adopting robots in domestic settings (something I often attribute to films like Terminator, iRobot, or Transformers, which haven’t really made robots look too friendly), while countries in the east like Japan and China (who haven’t been inherently exposed to ‘evil robots’) have traditionally been much more accepting robots in their domestic lives. Obviously, the ‘evil robot’ archetype’s been balanced out by robots like R2D2, Wall.E, and Jarvis, whose prime objective has always been that of a human-serving side-kick. The burgeoning domestic robot movement (domestic as opposed to industrial) has always sought to follow this trend – of serving humans by handling menial repetitive tasks. Boston Dynamics’ robot dog was used to patrol roads during the lockdown in Singapore, the Cafe X Robotic Coffeebar in San Francisco uses a robotic arm to prepare and serve you fresh coffee, and perhaps the most prime example of a domestic robot, your beloved Roomba cleans your floors with more accuracy and efficiency than a human.

Follow Whipsaw’s work and read more on their blog here

The 2021 IDEA Award-winning Bizzy Robot

Human-inspired, pet-like, or alien – What must a Robot look like?

The holy grail of robotics has always been to build a multi-purpose bionic ‘butler’ – a dream that Whipsaw’s been working on for a better part of the past decade, but has been pretty vocal about its elusiveness. “Robots are complex and therefore expensive electro-mechanical machines, unlike toasters and washing machines”, Harden mentions. “For a robot to do just the most basic things like pick up laundry, fetch a drink or clean a countertop, without crashing into furniture, dropping valuables, spilling milk, or running over your dog is tough. It needs to know where itself is in the house, where and when it needs to go to perform a task, how to identify objects, how to retrieve and manipulate those objects, and how to respond to people and pets.” It’s a complicated problem where the hardware and software rely on each other so closely, there’s extremely little room for error.

The 2021 IDEA Award-winning MARTIAN Robot

A robot that performs tasks that a human/animal can do, eventually looks like a human/animal…

The California-based design studio’s tryst with domestic service robots started with robotics research lab Willow Garage who needed a robot that could assist with simple household chores. The funding dried up midway as Willow Garage shut shop in 2013, but it allowed Whipsaw to cement relationships with other clients with a keen interest in robotics, namely SRI (Stanford Research Institute), Rosie Robotics, Bizzy Robotics, and Aeolus Robotics, all of whom envisioned a simple low-cost home service robot. For Whipsaw, however, the design brief was a little more nuanced – “What should this home robot look like?” Was it better to be functional, honest, and minimal, or have it be more expressive or even human-looking? “Our opinion was to make it what it wanted to be – a purposeful and efficient tool with self-explanatory design cues and details”, Harden explained. However, as they started designing it, they soon realized that it was hard not to look like some type of creature. By the time you put cameras where they need to be in order for the robot to see, arms that can reach and lift, and hands to grasp objects, you inevitably end up building some form of ‘animal’. Harden admitted, “We decided to embrace that logical consequence and just let these necessary elements define the robot’s identity.”

KODA Robot Dog

KODA Robot Dog – The first consumer-based robot dog to run on a Blockchain Network

Around 2018, Whipsaw was also approached by KODA Inc. to help integrate their revolutionary fusion multi-processor and AI-based software into a robot. The KODA Robot Dog holds the title for being the first high-end domestic robot-dog running on a decentralized blockchain network, with its ‘own brain’ – an 11 teraflop processor capable of A.I. machine-learning. The dog-type quadruped robot relied on a decentralized network to share data and optimize behavior, making all KODA dogs smarter by relying on a hive-mind of sorts. “For example, a KODA dog in Phoenix can use the knowledge it automatically receives from other KODAs that are based in colder climates, like Anchorage, Alaska or Toronto, Canada”, Harden mentions to Yanko Design. “Without ever having set foot on ice, the KODA in Phoenix will learn how to avoid slipping. This includes warning its owner as well.” Armed with that incredibly powerful software, Whipsaw’s design took an interesting-yet-logical decision of ensuring the KODA robot dog (as intelligent and capable as it was) still retained a friendly, cute demeanor.

Functionally, KODA was designed to assist the human condition. Fulfilling the myriad of roles and responsibilities of dogs, the KODA monitor and protect properties; help disabled people see and navigate safely; play with and teach children; and serves as a tech learning platform for individuals, schools, and robotic research institutions. For Whipsaw though, the roles and responsibilities of KODA set a variety of constraints. The aesthetics of KODA had to be just right. If it looked too dog-like it would be weird. If it was not dog-like at all, it would be an unfriendly machine. Every aesthetic decision had to be respectful of this perception, while at the same time taking on the mammoth task of integrating all the components and sensors into the robot’s animal form. The result was an incredibly sleek canine-inspired bot with four 3D surround-view cameras and 14 motors, including in the neck and tail, which gave it dog-like gestural qualities. If you had to assign a breed to KODA, Whipsaw’s team says it’s a cross between a friendly labrador and an athletic and slightly intimidating Doberman. It can run at a respectable speed of 2 meters a second, climb stairs, monitor large areas with its sensors and cameras, and even respond to its owner’s commands as well as their emotions – a testament to the dog’s incredible AI brain. Whipsaw even designed the dog’s body in a way that put the battery pack in its abdomen… so when KODA needed to recharge, it could simply walk over to its charging station and lay down (quite like a dog resting), bringing its belly in contact with the charge nodes. KODA was unveiled this January 2021 at the virtual CES, and even secured the iF Design Award this year. Today, over 850 people own KODA dogs, either as pets, surveillance dogs, or guide dogs. Yanko Design covered the KODA Robot Dog back in January and you can read more about it here.

The bright future of Domestic Service Robots… and how Industrial Designers can seize this new opportunity

Robots are more than just basic products, they’re entities – this provides Industrial Designers with a massive variety of opportunities that go beyond simply just designing an exterior or ‘solving a problem’. “The mere fact that a robot moves on its own and its scale is close to a human makes it seem alive, including the feeling like it even has emotion. As a designer, you have the opportunity to not only design the thing itself but that emotion too. It’s like adding a fourth “E” dimension to your XYZ design problem”, Harden mentions. It’s a unique and expansive region that covers a lot of different aspects, because robots are inherently very complex systems, and we perceive them differently from a ‘lifeless’ product. As the Industrial Design profession evolves, transitioning from tangible products to intangible ones (I completely fault UI/UX designers for stealing the phrase ‘Product Design’), the area of robotics has a redeeming quality to it, providing a dizzying number of areas of intervention, from form-giving to functional problem solving, user experience, technology integration, machine anthropology, emotional design, and purpose. Harden calls it “a veritable feast of design challenges.”

Bizzy Robot

It’s something Whipsaw’s passionately involved in too. Prior to designing KODA, Whipsaw even worked on the Aeolus R1, a humanoid helper which debuted at CES 2018, the MARTIAN robot, a one-handed robot on wheels, and the BIZZY, another single-armed robot that could be controlled by touch or even respond to voice commands. A winner of the IDEA Award in 2021, Bizzy was equipped with a wide range of motions thanks to the way it was designed, featuring a height-adjusting arm that could reach on countertops to clear up for you and arrange your tables before meals, or even ‘bend down’ to pick up objects from the floor or water your plants.

Rosie Robot Maid

Located in the heart of Silicon Valley, Whipsaw’s portfolio of work encompasses a healthy variety of tech and innovation-led products, although the massive smart-home industry is merely a stepping stone for the next evolutionary step – domestic service robots… and Whipsaw’s team believes that designers should really feel excited for all the opportunities it brings to help draft the human-robot dynamic and potentially rewrite civilization. In a blog-post on Whipsaw’s site, Harden says “How the human-robot dynamic ultimately influences and changes our society and culture is to be determined, but in the meantime, the design profession should be excited. It has never had a better quest or more interesting subject than the domestic robot.”

Visit the Whipsaw Website to view their latest projects and read more about Design + Robotics on their blog.

Boston Dynamics’ latest robot moves away from biomimicry to design a practical warehouse solution!





Thirty years ago, starting out as a tightknit research company, Boston Dynamics began its quest to create robots that could go where people go, do what people do, and move as people move. Today, a leading engineering and robotics design company, the team behind Boston Dynamics continues to produce and deliver commercial robotics equipped with dynamic control, cutting-edge electronics, and next-generation software. Designed for easy rollout servicing in existing warehouses, Stretch is Boston Dynamics’ latest mobile, automated case-handling robot.

In appearance, Stretch resembles an excavator or backhoe construction truck, with a solid, bottom-heavy base and tensile robotic arm. Filled out with four small wheels for tight turning and lots of movement, Stretch’s mobile base is capable of sliding in every direction and designed to allow the fuller robot to fit anywhere a pallet fits. The long robotic arm provides plenty of reach and height with seven degrees-of-freedom, granting Stretch access to cases and shipping goods throughout any freight space or pallet.

At the end of Stretch’s robotic arm, a smart gripper embedded with sensors and active controls grants Stretch with handling mechanisms to grasp a wide array of different types of packages. Keeping the whole operation going throughout the workday are high-capacity batteries and an advanced perception mast for long-lasting, precise, and stable power. Speaking of how Stretch differentiates the currently saturated truck unloading robots, palletizing and depalletizing robots, and mobile bases with arms, Kevin Blankespoor, Boston Dynamics’ VP of Product Engineering and chief engineer for both Handle and Stretch says “Stretch is built with pieces from Spot and Atlas and that gave us a big head start. For example, if you look at Stretch’s vision system, it’s 2D cameras, depth sensors, and software that allows it to do obstacle detection, box detection, and localization. Those are all the same sensors and software that we’ve been using for years on our legged robots. And if you look closely at Stretch’s wrist joints, they’re actually the same as Spot’s hips. They use the same electric motors, the same gearboxes, the same sensors, and they even have the same closed-loop controller controlling the joints.”

While Stretch is still a prototype, the wheeled robot is the commercial version of a smaller, earlier model from Boston Dynamics called Handle. Stretch currently enacts unloading and building applications for trucks and warehouses, with future plans for truck loading in the works for Boston Dynamics. While the team behind Stretch has yet to name a price, Boston Dynamics is working to make the case-handling robot compatible with other warehouse systems.

Designer: Boston Dynamics

Four wheels fill out Stetch’s mobile base, allowing it to fit anywhere a shipping pallet fits.

Smart gripping technology allows Stretch to reach for and take hold of a multitude of varying package types.

Stretch’s lengthy robotic arm grants the robot access to packages throughout the warehouse and full extension for easy rollout.

The team at Boston Dynamic equipped Stretch with seven degrees-of-freedom, providing plenty of reach and height.

Stretch was designed for warehouse case-handling and truck unloading.

Boston Dynamic’s Spot gets an ultra-nimble robotic arm extension, making him the perfect pet and companion

Spot robot, Boston Dynamics’ most acclaimed robot has plenty of tricks up its sleeve and it has become an object of desire for geeks out there. Now the dog has got even more potent at doing a plethora of tasks as it gets a new limb in the form of a functional arm that gives the four-legged companion even more capability to do tasks it had a handicap in earlier. Boston Dynamics said, “Now that Spot has an arm in addition to legs and cameras, it can do mobile manipulation.” That gives it the ability to open doors, tidy up the living room, be your mate when you are skipping ropes, tend to the garden, reach difficult corners, and countless other dexterous tasks possible with that robotic limb.

The robotic dog has been in the limelight ever since it was first released in 2016 – in a way bamboozling people with its advanced robotic capabilities that in a way are eerily similar to a pet dog. Boston Dynamics has been hot property ever since it first propped-up into the scene more than a decade ago. Starting off as a Massachusetts Institute of Technology spin-off, Boston Dynamics was bought by Google in 2013, then in 2017 it had a new parent company SoftBank and recently Hyundai Motor Group bought it in 2020. Spot has been the most prized possession in its portfolio – even you can buy one if you have a hefty sum of $74,500 to spare for the love of a robotic pet dog.

Now with the nimble robotic arm extension Spot has become better than ever – ready for the challenges we humans want to throw its way. Boston Dynamics in the future vouches to, “extend Spot’s value for autonomous inspection and data collection.” As one can see in the latest video, Spot can do dexterous tasks that require a stable hand – switching on the grid lights, opening doorknobs, picking up laundry, or even taking up planting tasks in your garden. This gives us a fair idea about the way robotics is going to take shape in the coming decades and the unimaginable dimensions in which human life is going to take profound leaps!

Designer: Boston Dynamics