People Go Crazy Over a YouTube Video Showing Humanoid Robot Jump, Run, Grab, Climb, and Backflip

Boston Dynamics takes the internet by storm by posting the latest demonstration of its skilled bipedal humanoid robot – Atlas, on its YouTube channel.

Written by: Arjita Gupta

Edited by: Krutarth Ghosalkar

Last Updated: January 20, 2023

Boston Dynamics, an American engineering and robotics company, has released a video on its official YouTube channel about the latest demo of its humanoid robot, named Atlas. The bipedal robot can jump, run, grab, and throw things when helping a worker. The performance of the new prototype robot is just like the actions of a human. It can do various advanced tasks and simple duties, representing how well robotic technology has progressed in recent years.

The video released on Wednesday had a description expressing that Atlas is prepared to learn a set of new skills and gets hands-on experience for it. The bipedal robot interacts with objects, manipulates the surroundings around it, and modified the course by sensing, locomoting, and athletic abilities to reach the goal-pushing boundaries. The company in a comment said that the rudimentary grippers of the robot were designed keeping in mind the need to do heavy-lifting tasks.

Coming back to the video content, it is about the humanoid robot amazing the viewers with its astonishing dexterity and agility, assisting a worker in a fake built-up construction site. Atlas is seen doing tasks such as climbing a set of stairs, tossing plants, and gently balancing a bag above its head. It also impresses the audience with athletic capabilities and speed, ending the video with an effortless backflip on completing the tasks.

The video baffled the social media users, and one of the users even wrote how he remembered the machines as a kid, where they could hardly walk across the floor. But the level of advancement today is truly enthralling, finally dropping a note of congratulation. Another user said that it is beautiful to see the smoothness of their actions, and appreciated by saying nice work genuinely. Then there was a user who said that though it is a bit weird to see robots do this, the same is awesome and it is worth watching the humanoid prototype move around so fluidly.

Scott Kuindersma, the team lead on Atlas at Boston Dynamics said that they are not thinking to make the robot only for dynamic movements through the environment as they had done for Parkour and Dance. But they are also starting to think about how Atlas can put skills to work and be able to manipulate and perceive objects in its environment. He said that what the other robots cannot do, Atlas is capable of performing all those tasks.