Let’s Have Some Enjoyable: Spot Performs With a Tire, Reachy Mini Races Microduck

Video Friday is your weekly collection of superior robotics movies, collected by your pals at IEEE Spectrum robotics. We additionally publish a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics occasions for the following few months. Please ship us your occasions for inclusion.

CoRL 2026: 9–12 November 2026, AUSTIN

Humanoids 2026: 6–9 December 2026, SANTA CLARA, CA

Get pleasure from at present’s movies!

Some top-notch whole-body manipulation right here from RAI, though it’s just a little arduous to inform whether or not there’s direct torso involvement, which is one thing that people do with heavy or awkward stuff on a regular basis.

“Something that reveals up as a blob in a depth picture might be taken for the tire, whether or not an individual strolling previous or a stray object on the ground. In just a few runs the robotic left the tire and went after one thing else.” That “one thing else” appears suspiciously obscure, doesn’t it?

[ Robotics and AI Institute ]

We current a contact-centric studying framework for versatile humanoid mobility in advanced and unstructured environments. Our method bridges movement imitation and reinforcement studying by leveraging human movement knowledge as a coaching prior whereas enabling autonomous adaptation to beforehand unseen terrains.

[ ETH Zurich Robotic Systems Lab ]

You’ve actually heard me say it a thousand occasions: The one issues that would presumably make Reachy Mini higher can be some wheels and an entire bunch of fancy hats.

However after all the one approach I might presumably suggest the wheels is that if Reachy Mini can completely wreck Microduck in a race.

[ Pollen Robotics ]

Luxonis is launching OAK 4 FFC, a 70 x 53 mm imaginative and prescient pc that lets humanoid and drone builders put as much as 5 cameras wherever the robotic wants them. The board runs sync, stereo depth, and AI itself, and calibrates from the scene as a substitute of a checkerboard.

[ Luxonis ]

Thanks, Carson!

Coming quickly: Mini Pupper 4!

[ MangDang ]

HX Associates explores completely different robotic hand designs powered by DYNAMIXEL, starting from a single articulated finger and a gripper to three-, four-, and five-finger arms. The video contains movement demonstrations throughout the lineup and VR teleoperation of the multifinger arms.

[ Robotis ]

Thanks, Hyunwoo!

Developed by bluZenit, monkeyBot 2.0 is an modern robotic platform designed to navigate advanced industrial piping methods. Impressed by nature, monkeyBot 2.0 makes use of a novel gripping and climbing mechanism to maneuver alongside vertical and horizontal pipes, navigate bends, and entry difficult areas inside industrial services.

[ bluZenit ]

Thanks, Trevor!

[ Generalist ]

Calling this a “robotic” hand at this level could be just a little bit untimely, however that is the type of expertise we’re going to wish for deployable robots which are compliant and protected.

[ BruBotics Human Robotics Research Center ]

Robotiq actually is the OG of business manipulation, aren’t they?

They usually’ve bought a brand new tactile sensing gripper, too.

[ Robotiq ]

Introducing ANYmal X, which is the least prone to explode quadruped at present out there for buy.

[ ANYbotics ]

For these of us preferring to play tennis alone.

[ LimX Dynamics ]

At Yulong River Scenic Space in Guangxi, China, DEEPRobotics’ Lite3 quadruped robotic and LYNX M20 wheeled-legged robotic are working collectively throughout a spread of real-world tourism situations.

[ DEEPRobotics ]

In April 2025, the MAVLab group from TU Delft competed within the A2RL Drone Racing Championship in Abu Dhabi. Their AI algorithm MonoRace received the AI Grand Problem after which beat three human FPV world champions. The drone makes use of solely a single onboard digital camera and an IMU for state estimation. An onboard neural community maps the estimated state on to motor instructions.

[ MonoRace via Science Robotics ]

This video from Starship is price watching principally for the b-roll of their early prototypes.

[ Starship ]

Meet SAWbot, a bio-inspired amphibious robotic that swims utilizing a steady wavelike movement powered by a single motor. SAWbot is among the many most energy-efficient swimming robots reported to this point. It might probably swim, crawl on land, and transition between water and land whereas producing minimal disturbance to aquatic life.

[ Paper via IEEE Robotics and Automation ]

In case you missed IROS this yr, a bunch of the talks are actually on-line, and listed here are a few good ones.

[ IROS 2026 ]