The History of a Handle

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The first version of the logistics robot we built was a balancing robot. And that's called a handle, and there's that thing was epic. The reason why this robot sort of looks epic, some people said it looked like an ostrich,. It has legs, so it can extend its legs. So it's wheels on legs, they had a tail and had this arm, and they're all moving simultaneously. We decided it was too slow and couldn't pick boxes fast enough, basically.

Robert Playter is CEO of Boston Dynamics, a legendary robotics company that over 30 years has created some of the most elegant, dextrous, and simply amazing robots ever built, including the humanoid robot Atlas and the robot dog Spot. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:
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OUTLINE:
Here’s the timestamps for the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time.
(00:00) – Introduction
(07:18) – Early days of Boston Dynamics
(15:39) – Simplifying robots
(19:37) – Art and science of robotics
(24:20) – Atlas humanoid robot
(41:14) – DARPA Robotics Challenge
(55:34) – BigDog robot
(1:09:23) – Spot robot
(1:30:48) – Stretch robot
(1:33:36) – Handle robot
(1:39:10) – Robots in our homes
(1:47:57) – Tesla Optimus robot
(1:56:39) – ChatGPT
(1:59:43) – Boston Dynamics AI Institute
(2:01:14) – Fear of robots
(2:11:36) – Running a company
(2:17:13) – Consciousness
(2:24:46) – Advice for young people
(2:26:42) – Future of robots