Atlas Gets Clobbered in the Name of Science

Skynet will make sure that Atlas’s treatment doesn’t go unpunished.

BEACON TRANSCRIPT – It would seem that robots will have one more reason to unleash their prophesized robotic apocalypse. Atlas gets clobbered in the name of science and the clever robot doesn’t know when to quit.

Atlas is the proud and joy of Boston Dynamics, a US company focused on creating human-like robots. Recently, the robotics company posted a video on their official website, to show off the latest version of Atlas robot.

He may not be as dashing and cool as The Terminator, but he can sure move like a human. Well, maybe not like a normal person, rather as a person who drank too many tequila shots. Long story made short, Boston Dynamics wants to earn the title of being the first robotics company to have devised a fully self-aware and self-guided automaton that will be able to do stuff with little help from the petty humans.

We are probably years away from developing such a robot, but it would seem that we are on the right track this time. And no, that’s not a guy dressed in a suit making the robot dance, it’s actually the automaton developed by Boston Dynamics.

So, what’s up with Atlas? First of all, we should know that he is not the first prototype to bear the mark of Boston Dynamics. He is actually one of many robots devised by the company, but it seems that he might just be the one to actually look and behave like a human being.

There’s something amiss too about the automaton. Come to think of it, the clever bot looks like something that would come out if the guy in the power armor from Fallout decided to befriend a female Predator.

Nevertheless, the results are pretty amazing, despite its looks and clumsiness. According to the boys overseeing the project, this version of Atlas doesn’t have a power cord. This means that the automaton is capable of running on battery for an extended period of time.

Another cool thing about Atlas is his capacity for identifying and avoiding obstacles. His obvious knack for avoiding aggressive trees and savage boxes makes the robot pretty versatile in comparison with his other clan members.

So why does Atlas gets clobbered in the name of science? Well, you can call it the baptism of fire. Atlas sees the world by using the high-resolution and high-definition camera installed into his head. Moreover, the clever bot uses its camera in order to identify possible obstacles that can impede its movement through the environment.

Atlas is clever, but not that clever. In order to help out the robot, the team in charge of this project stuck special labels on all the obstacles the bot could encounter in the real world. These labels resemble a QR code and the bot is actually capable of reading them in order to understand what’s around him.

For now, the scientists are still thrashing, bashing, hitting and clobbering the innocent robot, in order to steel him for the trials that lay ahead.

Check out this video to see what Atlas can do.