Hilarious DARPA Robots Falling Video

If you’re worried about Skynet, take a quick gander at the outtakes reel (YouTube, inlined below the break) from the DARPA Robotics Challenge (DRC) and you’ll feel a lot better. The IEEE Spectrum reporters assigned to the DRC took a break from their otherwise serious coverage and made this funny compilation of all the multi-million dollar robotic fails to go along with this article.

It’s hard not to empathize with the robots, and we’ll admit that we winced a little bit with the first couple falls. (But after three or four, started breaking out in maniacal laughter.)

So you’re probably safe from the Terminator for at least a couple of years. But before you start getting too smug, human, remember what happened with the DARPA Grand Challenge that focused on autonomous cars; no teams finished in 2004, but five teams finished just a year in a reasonably tight race. The DARPA Challenges are as much about learning as anything else.

And bear in mind, as you watch these robots falling over while trying to turn a doorknob, that they’ve sat down in and driven a car in a previous phase of the trial. That’s pretty darn cool.

Filed under: robots hacks