Adam Savage's Spot Robot Rickshaw Carriage!
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN commenters cite it as a fun real-world example of Spot hauling a passenger whenever Boston Dynamics robots come up.
What it is
Adam Savage builds a Victorian-style rickshaw carriage for Boston Dynamics' Spot robot to pull, with him riding as passenger. The video covers the build and the engineering problems of pairing cutting-edge robotics with vintage transport, such as tuning the payload through Spot's API.
Recommended by 0 HN commenters across 0 different months, 2020 to 2024.
What Hacker News said
Cites Ajedi32 · 2020-06 · on “Boston Dynamics shop: Spot Explorer”
As others have said you can't directly ride it (the max payload is too low), but Adam Savage did manage to hook it up to a rickshaw and ride it that way: [this video]
Cites LeifCarrotson · 2021-01 · on “How Boston Dynamics Taught Its Robots to Dance”
I believe so; see [LINK] for the choreography API. You don't even have to buy a Spot to write the code, which is impressive in this industry! Now we just need someone to buy one and set it up in front of a webcam with a public SSH login. There's more documentation at [LINK] and [LINK] . However, it looks like a lot of the choreography is built-in; you can call twerk() or butt_circle() (documented at [LINK] ) but you don't have access to the raw kinematics, gyros, and accelerometers to generate your own unique moves. It would be amazing if they'd release the full routine to cause your Atlas or Spot to perform the dances, but I'm not aware of that being public anywhere. For a more general exam
Cites HarHarVeryFunny · 2024-04 · on “An electric new era for Atlas”
Agreed. On the other hand, it'd be highly amusing if the future did involve humanoid robots out mowing the grass with a push mower, or getting into their car to drive to the grocery store. I'm reminded of this Adam Savage video of BD's Spot pulling a rickshaw (23:00). [this video] Maybe in the future the passenger will be a humanoid robot being taken to its laundry folding job?