Alright, so maybe I’m jumping the gun here. It hasn’t yet been “confirmed” that this robot has any potential to turn against people but believe me, I’ve seen this movie before. It won’t be long before you catch this wide-eyed android reading lips and stealing kisses from the toaster.
A First Look
Oh, Hai there
It was created by Meka Robotics and aptly named the Meka M1 Mobile Manipulator. It’s equipped with two “dexterous arms” and a Microsoft Kinect sensor in its head. Oddly enough, it also has two unblinking eyes, which I suspect may not actually have the ability too see; and you should never trust anything that doesn’t blink. It’s why I don’t eat fish.
The movements are eerily real and it seems as though we’ve come a long way since the early day robot articulations that inspired so many kitschy dance moves. But now it feels like all robots overcompensate by moving too much. Like the robots are all: “Look at me miserable humans, I can do what you do”. I assume that this is why there are so many robots completely dedicated to just dancing. This robot was created with the intent of focusing on “industrial uses” to take advantage of the full “mobility, dexterity and compliant force-control” of the design. Personally, I feel like the robot could be put to better use. I mean, who actually needs a robot, with a face, on a car assembly line? Someone should put a horizontal track above a bar and let this little dude zoom across the counter to bring me cocktails and sliders, like in Reboot.
This is a computer generated image of what I presume was the initial concept design. It doesn’t look as though too many things were changed besides the hands which used to look a lot more like clamps. If you’re interested in buying the Meka M1, it comes with a pretty hefty price tag of $340,000, a good investment if you want to build yourself a car.
If you like robots, check out this much larger, more useless, but also more fun minotaur robot or this robot controlled through Microsoft’s Kinect.
Via: MekaBot; H/T ieee Spectrum
