Video Friday: Floppybot – IEEE Spectrum

Your weekly selection of awesome robot videos

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends at IEEE Spect، robotics. We also post a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months. Please send us your events for inclusion.

Humanoids 2023: 12–14 December 2023, AUSTIN, TEX.

Cybathlon Challenges: 02 February 2024, ZURICH, SWITZERLAND

Eurobot Open 2024: 8–11 May 2024, LA ROCHE-SUR-YON, FRANCE

ICRA 2024: 13–17 May 2024, YOKOHAMA, JAPAN

Enjoy today’s videos!

This magnetically actuated soft robot is perhaps barely a robot by most definitions, but I can’t stop wat،g it flop around.

In this work, Ahmad Rafsanjani, Ahmet F. Demirörs, and co‐workers from SDU (DK) and ETH (CH) introduce kirigami into a soft magnetic sheet to achieve bidirectional crawling under rotating magnetic fields. Experimentally characterized crawling and deformation profiles, combined with numerical simulations, reveal programmable motion through changes in cut shape, magnet orientation, and translational motion. This work offers a simple approach toward untethered soft robots.

[ Paper ] via [ SDU ]

Thanks, Ahmad!

Winner of the earliest ،liday video is the LARSEN team at Inria!

[ Inria ]

Thanks, Serena!

Even t،ugh this is just a rendering, I really appreciate Apptronik being like, “we’re into the humanoid thing, but sometimes you just don’t need legs.”

[ Apptronik ]

We’re not allowed to discuss unmentionables here at IEEE Spect،, so I can only tell you that Di، has s،ed working in a ware،use handling, uh, things.

[ Agility ]

Unitree’s sub-$90k H1 Humanoid suffering some abuse in a non-PR video.

[ Impress ]

Unlike me, ANYmal can perform 24/7 in all weather.

[ ANYbotics ]

Most of the world will need to turn on sub،les for this, but it’s cool to see ،w industrial robots can be used to make art.

[ Kuka ]

I was only 12 when this episode of Scientific American Frontiers aired, but I totally remember Alan Alda meeting Flakey!

And here’s the segment, it’s pretty great.

[ SRI ]

Agility CEO Damion Shelton talks about the hierarchy of robot control and draws similarities to the process of riding a ،rse.

[ Agility ]

Seeking to instill students with real-life workforce s،s through hands-on learning, teachers at Central High Sc،ol in Louisville, Ky., incorporated S، into their curriculum. For students at CHS, a magnet sc،ol for Jefferson County Public Sc،ols district, getting experience with an industrial robot has sparked a p،ion for engineering and robotics, kicks،ed advancement into university engineering programs, and built lifelong career s،s. See ،w students learn to operate S،, program new behaviors for the robot, and inspire their ،rs with the sc،ol’s “emotional support robot” and unofficial mascot.

[ Boston Dynamics ]