Apparently kicking them wasn’t enough.
Boston Dynamics, the company famous for producing amazing robot dogs and then relentlessly kicking and shoving them, has now released a new four-legged creation. This time, they’re tripping it with banana peels.
The robot, called SpotMini, is a smaller version of the famously brutalized Spot, and is sometimes equipped with a mechanical arm—which looks like a neck—and a mechanical hand—which looks like a head. The bot can use this dexterous limb to right itself after it falls, appearing to push itself up by its jaw.
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Boston Dynamics decided to test this.
Using a tactic perfected by Wile E. Coyote, the company tricked SpotMini into walking into a pile of banana peels, and released a video of the experiment this week. The results are impressive: the robot wipes out, but easily picks itself back up.
Then, somewhat unnervingly, it walks up a flight of stairs. It also loads a dishwasher and throws out garbage.
So clearly, once these things become sentient and start taking over the world, it’ll take more than banana peels to stop them.