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

ICRA 2026: 1–5 June 2026, VIENNA

RSS 2026: 13–17 July 2026, SYDNEY

Summer School on Multi-Robot Systems: 29 July–4 August 2026, PRAGUE

Actuate 2026: 18–19 August 2026, SAN FRANCISCO

Enjoy today’s videos!

What is the right number of legs for a robot? Two? Four? No, the answer is obviously all of them. All of the legs.

[ Argus ]

Sigh, yet another skill that I as a soccer-playing human should have but a robot has instead: the rabona.

[ Boston Dynamics ]

Robots are rapidly becoming part of our everyday lives, from drones and industrial machines to home assistants and humanoid robots. As their presence continues to grow, an important question arises: How can we choose the right robot—not only in terms of performance and cost but also in terms of sustainability? This video introduces the Eco‑Score for Robots, a new approach to evaluating the environmental impact of robotic systems. Just as eco-labels help consumers make informed choices in other industries, the Robotics Eco‑Label provides a clear and transparent way to assess how sustainable a robot truly is.

[ Robotics EcoLabel ]

Thanks, Bram!

Uh oh, five-fingered hands.

[ Agility ]

Robotic manipulation has come a long way since the 1990s. We’ve gone from the two-ball paddle juggling robot to AthenaZero, who can juggle barehanded using onboard vision feedback. By moving away from task-specific passive end-effectors such as cups or paddles and using multifingered hands, it can transition between a wide range of patterns including cascade, half-shower, tennis, shower, and box.

There needs to be a robot circus show already.

[ Robotics and AI Institute ]

Zero legs. One hat. $13K.

[ Astribot ]

From its elegant design to the advanced technology powering every step, Luna is more than a machine—it’s a leap into the future.

[ LimX Dynamics ]

Thanks, Jinyan!

You got a quadrotor in my quadruped! No, you got a quadruped in my quadrotor!

[ MARS Laboratory ]

A human hand, a robot’s arm—together tracing circles of trust and precision. No missteps. No hesitation. Just pure, algorithmic grace.

[ UBTECH ]

Low-gravity planetary exploration with a quadruped just looks like fun.

[ Autonomous Robots Lab ]

Here it is, that robot Kool-Aid that everyone seems to be drinking. Including me!

[ Generalist ]

Don’t shoot Mini Pupper!

[ MangDang ]

We show here the ARISTO (Anthropomorphic, Robotic, Integrated-Sensing, Tendon-Operated) Hand. Developed in collaboration with Sony Group Corporation, this research platform is engineered to address the complex requirements of manipulating small, thin, and fragile objects.

[ University of Texas Human Centered Robotics Lab ]

Okay, but did you really have to call it the T800?

[ EngineAI ]

Moby shows what useful mobile manipulation looks like in the real world: picking up, carrying, and placing adaptable payloads. The video shows payload handling across increasing crate loads, including a 50.3-pound load, while maintaining balance, control, and mobility. This is the kind of capability that matters outside the lab—moving real objects, in real spaces, with practical reliability.

[ Noble Machines ]

What does it take to make a robot look human? Harvard SEAS students Hailey Block, Henry Tavistock, and Evan Crowley created “Hollow Minds,” a pair of animatronic heads capable of speaking, blinking, tracking movement, and displaying lifelike facial expressions.

[ Harvard University ]

The longevity here is impressive, but the obvious question here is why the heck you’d ever do this task with a bipedal humanoid robot. It also doesn’t seem to have any error recovery, which is obviously fixable, but highlights the fact that real humans are versatile and humanoid robots are not.

[ Figure ]

Kacper Nowicki, CEO and cofounder of Nomagic, recently sat down for a deep dive into the “humanoid vs. purpose-built” debate during a panel discussion at the Web Summit in Vancouver 2026.

[ Nomagic ]

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

ICRA 2026: 1–5 June 2026, VIENNA

RSS 2026: 13–17 July 2026, SYDNEY

Summer School on Multi-Robot Systems: 29 July–4 August 2026, PRAGUE

Actuate 2026: 18–19 August 2026, SAN FRANCISCO

Enjoy today’s videos!

Just months after its debut, Atlas is proving why it is the world’s most capable and dynamic humanoid robot, ready for real work. Lifting a mini-fridge is a feat of strength, but the true breakthrough is in the underlying reinforcement learning and controls systems. The robot is learning to navigate real world adaptability: handling heavy objects by bracing and accounting for the mass and inertia; using whole-body control, not just hands to maneuver; and demonstrating superhuman range of motion and balance. This marks a critical shift in robotics where humanoids move beyond the lab and into dynamic industrial settings.

Watching Atlas move a fridge may be less impressive than whatever the heck it does at 4:10.

[ Boston Dynamics ]

SpikerBot is a robot you teach by wiring neurons, not writing code. Drag spiking neurons in the app, connect them to sensors and motors, then press play. It moves, reacts, and changes behavior based on the brain you built.

Already funded on Kickstarter with a robot kit starting at US $219.

[ Kickstarter ] via [ Backyard Brains ]

Thanks, Greg!

Wheeled-legged robots, which have wheels at their feet and achieve high mobility by coordinating wheel drive and leg drive, have been developed. In this paper, we address the problem of how to draw out the potential task-execution capability of the legs by freeing them from the roles of locomotion through external body support.

[ WiXus ] from [ JSK Robotics Laboratory ] via [ ICRA 2026 ]

A very clever idea for electronics-free, multi-dimensional touch sensing.

[ Nature Communications ]

Using external voice commands, G1 is directly controlled to generate a wide range of actions in real time. This video was recorded in a single take, with on‑site audio recording.

[ Unitree ]

Hummingbirds are impressive flyers, and advancements in high-speed photography, instrumentation, and measurement techniques have revealed much about their aerodynamics, flight behaviors, and wing and body kinematics. However, comparatively less is known about their natural flight dynamics, which is the relationship among a bird’s flight velocities, the control actions of its wings, and the acceleration of the bird in flight. To investigate this, at the Advanced Vertical Flight Laboratory we have designed, built, and flight tested a biomimetic robotic hummingbird on which is implemented the same techniques for flight control as observed in hummingbirds.

[ Advanced Vertical Flight Laboratory ]

I guess if you’re going to make a robot dog, it’s only fair to give it the ability to frolic in the water.

[ MagicLab ]

The original automated layout robot—the one that showed up when the construction industry was pretty sure robots were lame and then proved otherwise. It has printed millions of square feet of layout across thousands of projects. It built an entire category of construction technology. The category of: Stuff That Actually Does Helpful Work on Real Jobsites. But FieldPrinter 2 is here. It’s faster, tougher, smaller, and smarter. So for FieldPrinter 1, it’s time. Time for a quiet retirement. A mug. Maybe a plaque... But nay, good knight! Thou shalt expire in a blaze of thunderous glory!!

[ Dusty Robotics ]

Here’s an interesting idea for an inflatable monocopter drone.

[ AIRLAB ]

Meet the Lynx S10—a compact all-terrain robot built to deliver industry-grade performance in a lightweight form factor under 20kg.

[ DE Robotics ]

Noble Machines builds general-purpose robots for heavy industry, supporting people with the most hazardous and physically demanding tasks. Attendees at NVIDIA GTC 2026 witnessed the power of autonomous industrial work with Noble Machines Moby.

[ Noble Machines ]

I’m sorry, but Lego bricks should be for humans only.

[ LimX Dynamics ]

Need a robot that can go places? Huskies were around way before legged humanoids, and I bet they’ll be around way after, too.

[ Clearpath Robotics ]

I know this little dude is just a research platform at Disney, but I still want one to be my friend.

[ Paper ]

In March 1982, General Motors announced a rapid and aggressive conversion to robotics. By 1990, GM wanted 14,000 robots in their factories doing everything from painting to welding to assembly. Nowadays, we dream of robots in the factories, doing everything end to end. In the dark. Lights out. Guess what? GM dreamed the same 40 years ago, and they spent an estimated US $60 billion to try to make it reality. In today’s video, we look at General Motors and their dreams of the automated, all-robot factory.

[ Asianometry ]

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

ICRA 2026: 1–5 June 2026, VIENNA

RSS 2026: 13–17 July 2026, SYDNEY

Summer School on Multi-Robot Systems: 29 July–4 August 2026, PRAGUE

Actuate 2026: 18–19 August 2026, SAN FRANCISCO

Enjoy today’s videos!

Introducing GENE-26.5—the first AI brain to give robots human-level physical manipulation capabilities. Cooking a full meal. Cracking an egg one-handed. Conducting lab experiments. Wire harnessing. Even playing the piano. Tasks that were impossible for robots. Until now.

[ Genesis AI ] via [ TechCrunch ]

This is Labububot—one of the rarest monsters on Earth. Twelve Labubu heads are reconstituted into a single spherical form: a Frankenstein’s Monster of pop culture iconography. Labububot is a playful critique of social robots, and a question made physical—what do the monsters we make reveal about the monsters we are?

[ MIT Media Lab ]

Watch Spot crouch, jump, climb boxes, and leap across gaps, controlled by a neural network trained with reinforcement learning (RL) and multi-expert distillation.

[ Robotics and AI Institute ]

Good, now there is a robot that can take over exercise for me.

[ Kepler ]

Additive manufacturing has become an enabling technology, but existing techniques are not capable of directly 3D printing high-current electromagnetic actuators due to material and design limitations. In this work, a novel 3D-printable, multilayer, wave-winding topology is created for high-efficiency electric motors.

[ Sensing Technologies Laboratory ]

NASA is pushing the limits of flight on Mars—by spinning helicopter rotor blades so fast, they’re breaking the sound barrier. During recent tests at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, engineers accelerated the tips of next-generation rotor blades beyond Mach 1 inside a special chamber that simulates the atmospheric conditions of the Red Planet.

[ NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory ]

Balancing commercial goals and robotics research can be tricky, but with Atlas, we’re making it work.

[ Boston Dynamics ]

Open Duck Mini is an open-source version of Disney’s BDX droids, and you can play with it in your browser.

[ Open Duck Mini Viewer ]

Thanks, Masato!

Automated inspection of steel structures using magnetic climbing robots can reduce costs and improve safety, but many such structures feature interior corners that are challenging for wheeled or tracked robots to traverse. We present the first magnetic-wheeled robot to use X-ray fluorescence for steel structure inspection, Sally, capable of overcoming all interior corner transition types, traversing small obstacles, and maneuvering in tight spaces.

[ Robomechanics Lab ]

I don’t know what this is, but it’s coming soon from SwitchBot.

[ SwitchBot ]

You probably know the answers to these questions already, but this ELI5 from Aaron Ames is still fun.

[ Wired ]

Jim Fan, who leads the embodied autonomous research group at Nvidia, returns to AI Ascent to argue that robotics is entering its endgame—and that the playbook is already written.

[ Sequoia ]

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

ICRA 2026: 1–5 June 2026, VIENNA

RSS 2026: 13–17 July 2026, SYDNEY

Summer School on Multi-Robot Systems: 29 July–4 August 2026, PRAGUE

Enjoy today’s videos!

Sony AI’s latest research, published on the cover of Nature, addresses a long-standing challenge in physical AI: Can a high-speed autonomous system master the complex perception and dynamic control required to compete against professional athletes?

[ Sony AI ]

In this video, we present Ringbot Quad, a novel monocycle robot with four legs that combines wheeled and legged locomotion on a single platform. Ringbot Quad is designed as a unique monocycle mechanism that replaces the traditional drivetrain with four individually actuated driving modules, each integrated with an articulated leg.
Ringbot Quad aims to provide versatile and efficient mobility through two distinct locomotion modes. In driving mode, the four legs assist with balance and steering, while in walking mode, they fully support the body for quadruped locomotion. By switching between these modes, Ringbot Quad can navigate diverse terrains and overcome obstacles that are difficult for either wheeled or legged systems alone.

[ Kinetic Intelligent Machine Lab ]

Humanoid robots have beaten human runners in a Beijing half-marathon, marking a breakthrough in China’s rapidly advancing robotics industry. More than 100 robots competed alongside 12,000 people in the 21-kilometer race, with three crossing the finish line ahead of any human.

[ Al Jazeera ]

Watch AthenaZero juggle barehanded using on-board sensory feedback only. No motion capture. No funnels. No help adding the third ball. The robot learns to adapt to the uncertainties from contact and the appropriate hand-eye coordination.

[ Robotics and AI Institute ]

From the look of this, it’s based on data capture from humans. What I want to know is, what this will look like when it’s not based on data capture from humans.

[ Unitree ]

Looks like Sphero would like to fill that sad gap in educational robotics left by LEGO Mindstorms.

[ Sphero ]

I am pretty sure that this is not how the shell game is played.

[ Generalist ]

At this point, real value from robots in warehouses much more commonly comes from systems like these, not humanoids.

[ Berkshire Grey ]

Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems propose a method to measure the efficiency of soft electrostatic actuators, enabling systematic evaluation of electrical-to-mechanical energy conversion. Using Peano-HASEL actuators, they demonstrate efficiencies up to 63.6%, over three times higher than previously reported, and validate the approach across other actuator types, paving the way for more energy-efficient soft electrostatic robotic systems.

[ Max Planck Institute ]

Already deployed in North America, quadruped robots provide continuous patrol, real-time monitoring, and faster incident detection across residential communities—day and night.

Um, thanks, but no thanks.

[ DEEP Robotics ]

Catching drones with what looks like a UR20 robot arm is a neat trick.

[ Skydio ]

Overactuated drones performing aerial maneuvers will always look just a little bit wrong to me.

[ Paper ] from [ ETH Zurich ]

Need a rugged and reliable mobile manipulator? Please consider a not-humanoid.

[ Clearpath ]

This CMU Robotics Institute talk is from CMU’s Raj Reddy, on “The Future of AI : Doomers vs. Abundance.”

The last decade has seen extraordinary advances in AI. The potential arrival of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) has profound implications for future of our society. We anticipate a world where AI assistants and humanoid robots will perform most of the tasks requiring human expertise and skill at 10% of current costs. In this paradigm, essential services—including food, housing, energy, education, healthcare, and transportation—will be provided via Universal Basic Services, signaling a historic shift from a society of scarcity to one of abundance. This transformation raises a critical concern: widespread displacement of traditional labor. What is the human role when AI can do everything? This talk presents an alternative scenario: a “Human-in-the-Loop” evolution. In this model, humans transition into high-level supervisory roles, collaborating with AGI to train robots in novel skills and adapt them to unforeseen tasks.
We explore this as the “Maharaja Model” where technology serves humanity so comprehensively that work will be optional for humans. Finally, we will discuss how institutions like the Robotics Institute must lead this transition, developing the hybrid technologies and ethical frameworks necessary to bridge the gap between our current economy and a robot-assisted future.

[ Carnegie Mellon University Robotics Institute ]