How Boston Dynamics' Spot Robot Learns to Dance!

it's robot time i'm adam savage from tested with  my favorite robotic platform spot from boston   dynamics now we've been playing with spot and  running him through his paces for the better part   of a year so far and we love him and as we take  him out and about pretty much everybody loves him   but what they really love is when we pop at him  when we give him some character when we give him   uh some other movements besides just walking  or jogging or going up and down stairs   and boston dynamics has just recently  added a whole taxonomy of brand new   movements that spot can do and that's  what this video is about we're going   to take a deep dive and just find  out how much he can shake his booty a note about the footage you're about to see uh  you're gonna see me working directly with spot   and close to him uh and i'm gonna look like  i'm comfortable and that's because i am that   comfort is based on a year of institutional  knowledge built on working directly with   the wonder that is spot um if you think that i'm  being cavalier in terms of my proximity to him   know that nothing could be farther from the truth  all of us here at tested as we have worked with   spot are very cognizant of the dangers and are  being incredibly careful when we're around him   while his motors are powered with that being said  let's get to the location all right norm this   almost looks like editing software is is that how  this works it's the first thing that uh i thought   it would as well um so for a long time we've  been controlling spot with this guy right and i   know a lot of people commented in the videos like  what is that controller it looks so cool but it's   really it's an android tablet with thumbsticks  and it runs boston dynamics software and yeah   a lot of that functionality is ported this special  now choreographer software which is like after   effects or an editing video editing software  or an animation piece of software honestly   where you have a timeline where you linearly  drop these movements they've pre-programmed   onto the timeline and these are the movements in  their categories body step dynamic transition neil   and there's sub movements within that and you can  drag and drop those into the timeline totally i   mean one of the things i've been realizing  after working a couple of weeks with this is   dancing and even thinking about a few seconds of  movement it's a lot of complex minutia to it right   even a second of dancing isn't you can't think of  it as one move it's legs body what the arms are   doing right there's a get ready move there's an  execution there's a recovery yes a recovery time   right so you think about so can you tip him over  by accident absolutely i've done it so many times   i want to push him to the limits yeah yeah yeah  so something really cool is like a jump move and   i queue up jump it's a very dynamic move and you  can instantly preview it so spot's gonna jump   right yeah and you can already see there there's  a little bit of uh variables i've adjusted you   can do lateral jumping that was a little bit of a  on the y-axis you're adjusting by milliseconds or   seconds here uh yeah some amount of distance yeah  they do cap it so of course the team there have   done their limits of testing but i can change like  how he lands like so if i want him to jump and   land with a very narrow stance let's see  if this works and preview on the robot   and his feet came in yeah right so all that tiny  minutiae it's not just make spot jump 10 times in   a row how do you want him to jump do you want  to jump to the side do you want them to jump   and do a little bit of a twist all that's  possible that's um that's a huge an addition to   the functionality because on the on the controller  we've been using it's literally like hop or skip   or jump or crawl or walk is like seven different  things but the parameters within those things   can't really adjust but this is like super fine  control over every aspect extremely fun control   and even moves like really with dancing in mind  they have things like a little running man move   and each move is one step oh like you know play  this over and over again you adjust the variable   so that one step copy and paste it drag it  into your timeline and then combine it with   other things you know to lead it into a  sway to do some pretty crazy things as   well this is one of my favorites it's a stand  to anneal stanton so it's standing right now what i didn't know it could do that what  here look at that dude shake it exactly   that position is what boss dynamics calls  anneal and then within this neil framework   yeah you can even move it's no way a little  bit and do a little bit of a dance right   so you can do boxing like a kangaroo yep and  then if you want you have to remember to do other   things to get back to normal you need to go back  to anneal to a stand so some of the moves very   basic no variables just get back into a normal  position wow uh but i'll play you a little short   sequence yeah yeah i started and this is just four  actions the running man love that hot step yes it's gonna go to a kneel and then a little bit  of a golf club at the end he's very pleased with   himself as any robot would be so i thought it'd  be fun to let's go through the list and we can   explore some of the movements by all means let  me know some of the ones that resonate with you   yeah and then we'll take a look in  programming oh it's not a touch screen   call it twerk a straight up call it a  torque move and it's just a little bit   let's see what the height okay let's try it  again that's one twerk an interesting thing   is when you have something they call sway yeah  right it's a little bit of a move but you can   change where you want its pivot to be is it  anchored from the front is it anchored from   the back when it does a sway so even you know  when your body is swaying because it's kind of   like in this animal pose yeah yeah like where  do you want that's really cool um let's see uh   right dynamic it's a hop why don't  you ask let's do some more jumping   wow not only is he jumping but he's also turning  as he's jumping can we make him spin in a circle   yeah let's try oh absolutely that was like  almost a 90. and one of the things is if you   look at this timeline it's split off into  you know four by four and it beats right   and you can even change the beat timing  if i want this jump to be set to 100 beats   all right that's basically where it goes let's  see if that's the correct jump doing a little bit   of a circle i don't need it to move laterally  so we'll just have it do that but let's stop   these let's stack it let's let's do like eight  chests in a row all right let's see what happens that that's amazing yeah can i see that  again i'm just like really amazed by that   there is so much going on in there i feel like the body twist is part of the  uh torsional recovery yes yeah and then all   that because it's like natural to how bodies  move yeah it makes you feel more alive too wow   let's see the most it can turn okay   dude wait a second do that again  i want to see how what the turn is that's a 90. that's a full 90 degree turn holy  cow let's see if we can add a bunch of those   yeah yeah yeah see if it can turn  let's see is it 90 degrees or here   yeah that's 90 right that was a full 90. so  that should be this should be a full revolution so nifty i feel sorry for whoever is in the  office below the room we're in but besides that dude you could go even a little  bit tighter oh yes that's it wow you're doing internal  external internal exactly can i see that again yeah i'm gonna even push it  further i'll be really impressed if it can do this okay do that one again it's really hard not to  curse good boy so while we have spot self writing   i think we adequately pushed its limits there  like we had to turn 90 degrees and transition   from a really wide stance to a small one jumping  jack style well i mean what i find exciting is   clearly like i said it's a taxonomy of movements  but it's not like every possible use case has   been worked out this is this is it's an ongoing  set of development so like that is super cool i   never that's the fastest way he could turn right  don't that's faster than him going you know and   it's a completely different approach to when we  were using the controller yeah because those it   was combining the just lateral movements with the  ability to stay upright at all times right with   whatever gate it was moving it was always going  to be steady right here much more flexibility and   to push the limits of the spot that's really  cool made your adjustments yep let's try this oh god dude so they've also included a bunch  of um pre-scripted sequences   and i think let's watch those because  they'll give a sense of how these movements   flow from one to another totally and see  which ones you like all right oh he's doing it wow laughs okay that's like my favorite walk so far that's my favorite don't point it right  at the camera that's a little obvious spot what i love about this walk is that my dog  huxley had different ways his body would move   depending upon his mood while running or walking  and like i'm starting to see a whole world of   possibility with spot dude with different gates  so this move here adam you really like was a   combination of a sway and a crawl oh it's  two things and the crawl so it's stacking   the body movement which is a sway and the  crawl which you like with a specific velocity   for each leg movement oh wow so let's play it  back one more time you can see it does sway   that's a sway yeah right then wow very closely  is the crawl i love that it's like tiptoeing it's a such a light touch on the floor for him   and really that combination yeah of the sway plus  the crawl gives it the tip silver that's great wow it's got really good time   i love that yes that's all okay can we do something like this uh   he does his um this one the running man  running man and then jump running man dumb   running man jump let's can we try  that yeah let's try that all right run okay adam so i think i got this you want   a jump when it's turning then do  a little bit of running man yep   then again okay and let's do it increase the  beats per minute so the higher tempo okay cool dude it's easy to look at the refined package that  spot is right now and think of it like it's   a laser printer kind of machine but it's  not this is much more akin to a dot matrix   printer by which i'm saying spot  is still way early on in his   development and just like the form  video that we released uh late last year everything we're doing to play with him is  informing how he can perform in the future   and we're learning as we go i mean the  difference between what spot can do today   and what spot we'll be able to do two years  from now is massive and i'm so psyched with   that that's why it's so thrilling for tessa to be  part of that mix right now isn't that right spot yeah it took us a while to work out that  timing thank you buddy you did good today   thanks for watching that video if there's a video  equivalent of the clean plate club you're a member   uh if you want to support us one of the  best ways you can do it is going to our   merch store and purchasing one of our beautiful  new posters this is my hand-drawn sketch of my   two tool boxes that i used when i was an active  model maker at industrial light and magic in the   late 90s and the early aughts there's also on  the far left side of the poster a list of all   of the tools i had in these toolboxes and  i used them daily for almost a decade again   you can get your own version of this printed on a  beautiful card stock by following the links below

Channel: Adam Savage’s Tested

Views: 410,911

Rating: 4.920352 out of 5

Keywords: testedcom, adam savage, boston dynamics, legged locomotion, robot dog, boston dynamics spot, boston dynamics robot, black mirror, boston dynamics dog, machine learning projects, adam savage's tested, robot dog boston dynamics, black mirror metalhead dog, adam savage robot dog, adam savage boston dynamics, adam savage tested, adam savage mythbusters, spot robot, robots, robot dance, dancing robot dog, dancing robots boston dynamics, adam savage spot robot

Id: 2SpNjBI1lu0

Length: 18min 52sec (1132 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 13 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/kamdub1775]

Dancing like Michael Jackson 😊