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!
Just months after its debut, Atlas is proving why it is the world’s most capable and dynamic humanoid robot, ready for real work. Lifting a mini-fridge is a feat of strength, but the true breakthrough is in the underlying reinforcement learning and controls systems. The robot is learning to navigate real world adaptability: handling heavy objects by bracing and accounting for the mass and inertia; using whole-body control, not just hands to maneuver; and demonstrating superhuman range of motion and balance. This marks a critical shift in robotics where humanoids move beyond the lab and into dynamic industrial settings.
Watching Atlas move a fridge may be less impressive than whatever the heck it does at 4:10.
[ Boston Dynamics ]
SpikerBot is a robot you teach by wiring neurons, not writing code. Drag spiking neurons in the app, connect them to sensors and motors, then press play. It moves, reacts, and changes behavior based on the brain you built.
Already funded on Kickstarter with a robot kit starting at $219.
[ Kickstarter ] via [ Backyard Brains ]
Thanks, Greg!
Wheeled-legged robots, which have wheels at their feet and achieve high mobility by coordinating wheel drive and leg drive, have been developed. In this paper, we address the problem of how to draw out the potential task-execution capability of the legs by freeing them from the roles of locomotion through external body support.
[ WiXus ] from [ JSK Robotics Laboratory ] via [ ICRA 2026 ]
A very clever idea for electronics-free multi-dimensional touch sensing.
Using external voice commands, G1 is directly controlled to generate a wide range of actions in real time. This video was recorded in a single take, with on‑site audio recording.
[ Unitree ]
Hummingbirds are impressive flyers, and advancements in high-speed photography, instrumentation, and measurement techniques have revealed much about their aerodynamics, flight behaviors, and wing and body kinematics. However, comparatively less is known about their natural flight dynamics, which is the relationship among a bird’s flight velocities, the control actions of its wings, and the acceleration of the bird in flight. To investigate this, at the Advanced Vertical Flight Laboratory we have designed, built, and flight tested a biomimetic robotic hummingbird on which is implemented the same techniques for flight control as observed in hummingbirds.
[ Advanced Vertical Flight Laboratory ]
I guess if you’re going to make a robot dog, it’s only fair to give it the ability to frolic in the water.
[ MagicLab ]
The original automated layout robot — the one that showed up when the construction industry was pretty sure robots were lame, and proved otherwise. It has printed millions of square feet of layout across thousands of projects. It built an entire category of construction technology. The category of: Stuff That Actually Does Helpful Work on Real Jobsites. But FieldPrinter 2 is here. It’s faster, tougher, smaller, and smarter. So for FieldPrinter 1, it’s time. Time for a quiet retirement. A mug. Maybe a plaque… BUT NAY, good knight! Thou shalt expire in a blaze of thunderous glory!!
[ Dusty Robotics ]
Here’s an interesting idea for an inflatable monocopter drone.
[ AIRLAB ]
Meet the Lynx S10—a compact all-terrain robot built to deliver industry-grade performance in a lightweight form factor under 20kg.
[ DEEP Robotics ]
Noble Machines builds general-purpose robots for heavy industry, supporting people with the most hazardous and physically demanding tasks. Attendees at NVIDIA GTC 2026 witnessed the power of autonomous industrial work with Noble Machines Moby.
[ Noble Machines ]
I’m sorry but LEGO bricks should be for humans only.
[ LimX Dynamics ]
Need a robot that can go places? Huskies were around way before legged humanoids, and I bet they’ll be around way after, too.
I know this little dude is just a research platform at Disney, but I still want one to be my friend.
[ Paper ]
In March 1982, General Motors announced a rapid and aggressive conversion to robotics. By 1990, GM wanted 14,000 robots in their factories doing everything from painting to welding to assembly. Nowadays, we dream of robots in the factories, doing everything end to end. In the dark. Lights out. Guess what, GM dreamed the same 40 years ago. And they spent an estimated $60 billion to try to make it reality. In today’s video, we look at General Motors and their dreams of the automated, all-robot factory.
[ Asianometry ]
The post “Video Friday: Atlas Versus a Fridge” by Evan Ackerman was published on 05/22/2026 by spectrum.ieee.org