Boston Dynamics Demonstrated Its Atlas Robot's Skills at a Mock Construction Site

by Noah Harris

Boston Dynamics, an engineering and robotics design company, has unveiled a new short video in which it showcased its humanoid-like robot Atlas helping a worker at a mock construction site.

In the latest video, the Atlas robot grabs a large wooden plank that it uses to bridge a gap between itself and the worker, then grabs a tool bag and deftly tosses it up to a construction worker waiting at the top of some scaffolding.

After completing its task, the humanoid robot pushes a big wooden box from the platform without losing balance and then effortlessly pulls off a backflip with a twist.

Of course, the video was probably rehearsed in detail and carefully programmed ahead of time. It should also be noted that the Atlas robot is now purely a research model that aims to push the limits of robotics and is not commercially available.

Boston Dynamics Introduced Stretch, Its New Warehouse Robot
Boston Dynamics has announced a new robot called Stretch, which is designed to move goods in warehouses. The robot can move up to 800 boxes weighing up to 23 kg each in an hour, and can also work up to eight hours without recharging.
The Internet ProtocolNoah Harris

Atlas is a bipedal humanoid robot primarily developed by Boston Dynamics, with funding and oversight from the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The 1.5-meter-tall robot with 28 hydraulic joints, initially designed to perform a variety of search and rescue tasks, was unveiled to the public on July 11, 2013.