Awesome Robots

An upcoming sci-fi drama series coming to UK channel Channel 4 and AMC. Humans is set in a world where you can get an android companion – a boon to some but an unwelcome – and creepy – intruder for other people.

Automation company Festo has developed a mechanical ant which not only looks and walks like the real deal, it can grip objects with its pincers and cooperate with its robo-friends. We love how they recharge with their antennae.

Simon Stålenhag’s retro futuristic digital paintings somehow combine dread and nostalgia. He’s currently raising funds for English language versions of two art books annotated with short stories about the world he created.

Inspired by the way that single cells assemble into complex organisms, researchers at Harvard University built an army of 1,024 Kilobots – tiny robots that work autonomously to form complex shapes by cooperating with one another.

Forget about magnets, how the heck does this droid work? Star Wars: Force Awakens‘ roller-droid BB-8 surprised attendees of the movie’s live panel at Star Wars Celebration by rolling onto the stage and having a brief chat with R2-D2.

As if the world didn’t have enough problems, a team of engineers developed this creepy and slithering robo-snake to haunt our nightmares. It’s not bad enough that it can chase you on dry land – it can follow you into the water and swim.

This strange and hypnotic contraption is another single-purpose robot, designed to delicately pluck young plants from a cramped pallette and replant them into larger packages for sale. Watch as it transplants countless flowers without a hitch.

This incredible machine is the Plasser & Theurer RU 800 S, and what it’s doing is building a railway line by laying rock, beams, and track with minimal human intervention – a once monumental task if you’ve ever seen an episode of Hell on Wheels.

The second trailer for the critically-acclaimed sci-fi thriller Ex Machina teases us with intense moments and vivid contrasts between nature and man-made objects, as two men and a female A.I. play tester-testee musical chairs.

Boston Dynamics has its sights set on being the real world Cyberdyne Systems. YouTuber SummerTravel took footage of their creepy humanoid PETMAN robot and turned it into a training montage. They shoulda used this track.

While we’re not sure of the practical uses for a metal bike helmet, we’re still mesmerized by this Mazak Variaxis 5-axis milling machine as it replicates a Rudy Project Windmax helmet from a block of aluminum using PowerMILL software.

Meet BigDog’s little brother. Boston Dynamics’ Spot is at home both indoors and outdoors and is great at keeping its balance, even when kicked by jerks who will surely be the first to die in the inevitable robot uprising.

So it’s time to dig out from the latest snownami. You could shovel by hand, or you could send off to Japan for Yuki-Taro, a robot that not only can plow snow, but that turns the white stuff into compact bricks of ice to keep things tidy.

At Georgia Tech, a group of robots play along with a human drummer, using sophisticated artificial intelligence techniques to turn in a truly improvised performance without skipping a beat. Yes, now robots can torture us with jazz fusion.

A messaging service for sending notes that appear to be handwritten. Its robots use pens to mimic handwriting. You can choose from a variety of handwritten styles or send your own writing style for the robots to copy.

The second trailer for Neill Blomkamp’s Chappie reveals more action-packed scenes as well as the hero’s origin. It appears that the self-aware and emotional robot is based on a Police droid. In other words, he’s RoboCop in reverse.

The military version of Amazon Prime Air. The Autonomous Aerial Cargo/Utility System is a US Navy program that aims to convert helicopters into drones, which can the be summoned for supply drops via a user-friendly mobile app.

“Perhaps these things could explain why they built them. And perhaps they could explain… everything.” Colin West McDonald’s short film is based on Paul Hornschemeier’s eponymous comic strip from the Project: Telstar anthology.

A demonstration of a mechanized platform which can perfectly balance a ball in its center no matter how hard its human master attempts to defeat it. Its motion control system can also make the ball follow precise paths on demand.

An amazing demonstration of Fanuc’s robots working together on an assembly line, sorting and organizing objects with amazing speed and accuracy. If only Lucy and Ethel had robotic assistants like these.

“Strategy only works when it is accompanied by the technology it requires.” Nifty Corporation’s documentary on Hebocon, a hilarious robot wrestling tournament where contestants know nothing about building robots.

Amazon’s cutting edge warehouses are now filled with Kiva robots, which ferry shelves around the warehouse. The robots allow items to be stocked and retrieved much quicker than when human workers had to walk up and down the aisles.

While trying out Double Robotics’ Segway-like telepresence robots, YouTuber Robot Liberation Front was bummed out that the robots were confined to a small conference room. Challenge accepted.