Get out your Olympic style scoring cards, robots are ready to wow you with amazing feats of gymnastics. Recently released videos from FrostyDesign (AKA Frosty Orange) show his unnamed robot creation performing a full 360 backwards flip from a standing position. Not only that, but it sticks the landing. Pretty impressive for a bipedal bot. Frosty also demonstrated the robot’s running speed at a recent Kondo Cup competition. We’ve got some great videos for you below: the backflip, the backflip in slow motion, and the robot running. Check ’em out.
My apologies, but Frosty recorded the videos with a 90 degree tilt. Now’s a good time to lay down on your desk and enjoy some videos, I guess.
Impressive speed, but it looks like the robot is a young girl fleeing an embarrassing social situation.
Frosty’s backflip robot has me thinking that we need to start a robotic gymnastics league. We’ve seen a robot that has some major skills on the high bar, and there’s like a thousand bots waiting to try out for the floor competition. In all seriousness though, each of these robots are pretty impressive for amateur projects. Of course, many build off of robot kits, but the customization and programming of each speaks to the commitment of the owners. As the sophistication of retail robot materials continues to improve we’re likely to see even more spectacular feats of gymnastic prowess. Who knows, maybe we’ll see a full tumbling routine. In the meantime, here’s one last video of Frosty’ bot in action. I like to watch it and imagine the theme from Chariots of Fire playing in my head.
[screen capture and video credits: FrostyDesign]
[source: FrostyOrange blog and Frosty Design YouTube channel]
