Awesome Robots

Meet Dog. He lives alone in New York City. Tired of his lonely life, he builds a robot companion, and they become best friends, living their best lives in the big city and beyond – through the good times and bad. This Academy Award-nominated animated feature hits theaters on 5.31.2024.

The PaintCam EVE is a robotic security camera that not only spots intruders and alerts you to their presence, but it can also shoot them with paintballs, UV marking ink, or tear gas pellets – though the latter might not be legal depending on where you live. The higher-end models can automatically detect animals and familiar faces so as not to target them.

There are lots of awful things that happen in the wasteland of Fallout, but it’s the gigantic mutant cockroaches that freak us out the most. With some sponsorship bucks from Prime Video, The Hacksmith set out to create a life-size robotic Radroach. Or five. Two of the remote-controlled creepy crawlers roll on wheels, and they’re all filled with nasty green goo.

The Mowrator S1 lawnmower can be operated remotely while you sit in your lounge chair. It mows perfectly straight lines with its cruise control feature and dumps clippings hands-free. It’s also got a vacuum for sucking up leaves, and the AWD model can drive on steep inclines. Its rechargeable battery pack can mow up to 1.125 acres per charge.

Creep out your friends and family with NECA’s life-size replica of the Model 3 Generative Android robot from the hit horror flick, M3GAN. The freaky figure measures 55 inches tall and is based on film-used digital files for accuracy. Her clothes are made from the same fabric used in the movie, and she has an articulated armature and movable eyes.

Yolopark’s upcoming Transformers G1 action figures are way too good for their price. The AMK Pro Series Optimus Prime and Megatron action figures have sweet battle-damaged paint jobs on their metal and plastic parts. They’re both about 8″ tall and come with lighting effects, weapon accessories, and a display stand.

Advancements in voice recognition, large language models, neural networks, and robotics come together in this impressive demonstration. An unnamed human asks the Figure 01 robot to recognize objects, perform tasks, and explain its reasoning. While it takes a moment for the AI to compute its responses, it’s a glimpse of things to come. (Thanks, Myriam!)

This animated film follows the story of Roz, a robot that crashlands on an uninhabited island. Along the way, Roz finds ways to survive and thrive, and eventually, a place among the animals. Lupita Nyong’o and Pedro Pascal head up a star-studded voice cast, along with Mark Hamill, Matt Berry, Catherine O’Hara, Bill Nighy, Stephanie Hsu, and Ving Rhames.

We’ve all seen those robotic vacuum cleaners. The Grain Weevil is like that, only it’s designed to safely spread out and level loose grain in silos. This hard-working little ‘bot roams around silos, zig-zagging through the grain and pushing it around with its screw drive treads and shovel. Multiple robots can also work together to maintain larger silos.

It’s all ball bearings nowadays. Given the ubiquity of these smooth-spinning widgets, it’s interesting to see how they’re made. Process X takes us inside the JTEKT Corporation, Japan’s highest-volume ball bearing factory. Watching millions of steel spheres rolling their way through the automated production line is reason enough to hit play. Turn captions on.

NECA’s 10″ tall version of OmniCorp’s ED-209 crimefighting robot perfectly matches the one on-screen. It’s fully poseable with a moving head, legs, arm wing panels, and cannon arms. It’s the perfect match for NECA’s 7″ RoboCop figures, and it makes mechanical sounds and speaks, “Warning: throw down your weapon. You have 15 seconds to comply.”

A good work-life balance is essential for all of us. Apparently, the same holds true for robots. In this short video from Boston Dynamics, their talented ATLAS bipedal robot takes a break from working to show off its dance moves. We’re waiting for the robo-supervisor to come out and tell ATLAS to get back to work.

Robert Zhang and Chris Lee won LEGO Masters season four. As part of their prize, they got a behind-the-scenes tour of LEGO’s highly automated factory in Billund, Denmark, and Chris shared some exclusive footage of the visit on his YouTube channel, including some unique Ninjago parts being produced. They also got to check out the amazing LEGO Idea House.

MetaBallStudios offers a fun take on size comparison videos. By putting viewers in the body of a virtual human, we get to see how mechs might look roaming around Earth. They start with Emmet’s diminutive Constructo-o-Mech from The LEGO Movie and work their way up to the massive, city-stomping Super Galaxy Gurren Lagann.

AI Warehouse has used machine learning to train figures to walk and run. This time, they’ve given Albert the bot a much more significant challenge – climbing stairs. Before the blockhead can work on that, he must learn to plant his feet on a step without falling down. After the staircase, things get more complex with uneven terrain and an escalator.

For many years, prosthetics have been primitive, static objects. Thanks to modern biotechnology, people facing lost limbs can look forward to devices like this brain-controlled robotic arm from Esper Bionics. It has independently-moving fingers, a swiveling wrist, and the ability to perform fine-grained actions like picking up a knife and cutting with it.

Whether or not you think the spatial computing tech in the Apple Vision Pro headset will take off, it’s an impressive piece of hardware. Apple gives us a rare glimpse into the modern manufacturing techniques used in crafting the device, including custom-cut and bent glass, an engineered fabric band, and a precision-machined aluminum bezel.

Science fiction has always promised us robots to do our bidding around the house. And we want more than just robot vacuum cleaners. In the 1980s, toymaker Tomy tried making a home robot with the Omnibot 2000. LGR looks at this retro automaton, which can speak, play music, and serve drinks.

We have robotic musicians, cooks, and barbers. Engineers at the University of Tokyo taught a robot to play Charades. The team took the Alter3 humanoid robot, connected it to OpenAI’s GPT-4, and used what it learned to act out prompts through its movements. Check out more of the bot’s interpretive dances on Takahide Yoshida’s YouTube channel.

For those unfamiliar with the One Hacker Band, it’s a roomful of electromechanical musical instruments created and programmed by Aaron Todd. For this performance, he programmed his robotic band to play Video Killed the Radio Star, the 1979 Buggles song that launched MTV and kicked off the music video era.

Inspired by the two-legged droids being tested at Disneyland’s Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge attraction, engineer James Bruton wanted to see if he could build a similar walking robot without Disney’s millions of dollars. His 3D-printed robot is powered by four servo motors and has no hip joints, so it teeters around impatiently from side to side.

The character Killjoy in Valorant has a nifty turret weapon. Mechanical engineer Danny Lum brought the weapon to life with a custom-built robot. At its heart is an OutofDarts Proton Pack hopper connected to a Jupiter blaster. He 3D printed a custom shell and built a motorized aiming system with an object-detection camera to shoot foam balls at human targets.

Here we are now; entertain us. The One Hacker Band features no humans except the man programming its servo-powered, robotic members. Crank up the volume and do the pogo dance as the animatronic musicians perform a cover of Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit.