Boston Dynamics is know for creating robots with highly articulated limbs. And now the engineers over there have created this four-legged wonder that does a lot during its brief demonstration. The robotic canine steps in beat with “Uptown Funk,” the Mark Bronson. It hops around without difficulty and stretches its neck to great heights. The dog can open its robot mouth and look like it’s yelling. And yes, it even twerks for the amusement of onlookers. This is a twerking robot dog.
While this goofy video is all well and good, its true purpose is to demonstrate just how maneuverable these robots are. The smooth and precise movements of the SpotMini fill the imagination. A robot like this can assist in times of emergency, navigate tricky rescue situations, or even scout out any harsh terrain.
It’s not just dogs that Boston Dynamics are working on either. A video from earlier this week showed off the Atlas, a humanoid machine capable of similarly impressive feats. While this machine is a bit bulkier, it’s able to climb up and jump over objects with seeming ease. While it does look human, they’ll probably need to change that at some point if they want to send it to California.
Boston Dynamics originally began as a subsidiary of Google parent company Alphabet. They were acquired by Japanese company Softbank in mid-2017. While the Atlas looks to be a little ways off from getting out into the marketplace, the more compact twerking robot dog is ready to go. The company is hoping to sell units to corporate parties sometime in 2019.
For a brief sample of just what these twerking robot dogs can do, you can check out the last season of Black Mirror on Netflix. In the episode “Metalhead“, you can see these dogs climbing and running all over a post-apocalypse in a way that doesn’t terrify you to the core at all.
