Fans of "The Jetsons" may see shades of the robotic maid Rosie as this Atlas humanoid robot attempts various cleaning tasks. The video, from robotics company IHMC, is shown at 20x speed so you don't have to wait for the slow-moving bot to get into position.
But just because Atlas can do it doesn't mean it's easy. Someone has to control its movements, double-check its hand positions when picking something up, and make sure it doesn't fall over while trying to retrieve a bit of trash from the floor.
John Carff, who was operating the robot for much of this video, told IEEE Spectrum that it takes "a lot of patience and out-of-the-box thinking" to make a humanoid robot do things like this — and you only have to watch this compilation of robots falling down at the DARPA Robotics Challenge to see how easily they can fail.
Related: DARPA Challenge: Machines Face Off for Fans at 'Robot Woodstock'
Tasks like these not only demonstrate the versatility of robots like Atlas, but also allow their programmers to find bugs and improve critical functions — like that crane kick at the end.
