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!
Figure is now able to produce 55 robots per week, which will be “allocated to internal research and development groups, data collection, efforts for robots to perform end-to-end housework, and commercial use-case development.” Er, that seems like a lot of robots to be making when commercial use cases are still ‘in development,’ doesn’t it?
[ Figure ]
The opening of the NEO Factory in Hayward, California marks a fundamental shift in humanoid robotics: America’s most vertically integrated robot factory has now begun full-scale production, bringing end-to-end manufacturing of NEO under one roof. Spanning 58,000 square feet and employing over 200 team members, 1X designs and builds every critical component in-house—motors, batteries, transmissions, sensors, structures, and final assembly—enabling faster iteration, superior safety, and true American scale. With the first robots already coming off the line and consumer shipments planned for 2026, this is the critical milestone that turns the vision of abundant, general-purpose home robots into reality.
Scale will fix everything…?
[ 1X ]
Unlike statically stable robots, a dynamically balanced robot can shift its center of mass to accommodate loads without tipping over, so we like to see just how far we can push our software. Getting Digit to stand on one leg pushes the limits of our sim-to-real pipeline training methodologies—even the slightest model mismatches can lead to instability.
[ Agility ]
In this work, we develop a tactile-enabled whole-body humanoid manipulation system for stable, dexterous, contact-rich real-world manipulation. Our system combines VR-based whole-body teleoperation, an RL-based lower-body controller, dexterous hand retargeting, distributed tactile sensing, and a multimodal policy called Humanoid Transformer with Touch Dreaming (HTD).
Thanks, Yaru!
Originally posted 2 years ago, “Can I Have a Pet T-Rex?” is a short interdisciplinary portrait documentary featuring paleontologist and Kod*lab postdoc, Aja Mia Carter and Kod*lab robotics researchers, Postdoc Wei-Hsi Chen and PhD student J.Diego Caporale.
It’s been two years! Where is her pet T. rex!?
[ Kod*Lab ]
I am not entirely sure why CMU and HEBI had robots at the 2026 NFL Draft, but I’m entirely sure that it made it more interesting to watch.
[ HEBI Robotics ]
Thanks, Trevor!
Ethan Lauer, a software engineer, answers your questions about robot perception, world modeling, and what spooks our Stretch robot.
[ Boston Dynamics ]
Yet another thing that a robot is consistently better at than I am.
[ Generalist ]
If you’re wondering where all those reported humanoid robot sales are coming from, it’s because every big company needs one or two for this sort of thing.
[ Impress ]
Full color laser yo-yo zapper, a phrase never before written in the history of the universe.
The future of the L’Oréal Pro 2026 Le Hair Show is… a bald robot?
[ LimX Dynamics ]
Meet MagicHand H01, our all-new dexterous hand.
[ MagicLab ]
This is briefly one of the flattest quadrupeds I have ever seen.
[ DEEP Robotics ]
I appreciate that Engineered Arts did not try to cover up the sound in this video.
[ Engineered Arts ]
This is very impressive considering that magnets are basically indistinguishable from magic.
[ Sung Lab ]
NASA has two rovers on Mars—but they’re exploring entirely different eras of the planet’s past. Separated by 2,300 miles, the two rovers are uncovering clues from very different moments in Martian history. Perseverance is on the rim of Jezero Crater, where it’s studying some of the oldest Martian terrain ever explored while searching for signs of ancient microbial life. Meanwhile, Curiosity is climbing Mount Sharp inside Gale Crater, where layers of rock reveal how Mars’ climate changed as water dried up from its surface.
[ NASA ]
We’ve built a surgical robot to automate key steps in the process of receiving a Neuralink implant to promote safety, reliability, and scalability.
[ Neuralink ]
The Chinese-made Unitree G1 humanoid robots are making their way into the U.S. And they aren’t just in viral videos but in major tech companies like OpenAI and Nvidia, and top academic institutions. Most arrive through Robostore, a robotics reseller based on Long Island. I went there to watch them come off the pallet, then brought one to my home to see what it could actually do. Are these the future of home robots? A security risk? A Chinese surveillance system on legs? I got answers—and a broken toe.
[ New Things ]
How do autonomous robots make decisions when the world is unpredictable? From self-driving cars to drone swarms, autonomous systems must operate under uncertainty—making real-time decisions with incomplete or unreliable data. In this video, Harvard SEAS Prof. Stephanie Gil explains how AI-powered robots coordinate, adapt, and stay safe in complex, real-world environments.
The post “Video Friday: Figure, 1X Ramp Up Humanoid Robot Production” by Evan Ackerman was published on 05/01/2026 by spectrum.ieee.org