We've seen Boston Dynamics' Spot Minis play reindeer and pull Santa's truck but those may have nothing on this robot hailing all the way from Italy. Although more a research platform than a commercial robot, the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT) Dynamic Legged System Lab's latest HyQReal robot has may have a few things going for it, including its ruggedness, its durability, and, more importantly, its strength.
Researchers at Stanford University have developed a new robot that is dog-like and designed to be able to navigate rough terrain and offer lots of agility. The robot is called Doggo, and it can trot, jump, and backflip with no need for treats as a reward. Doggo is designed with reproducibility in mind. Rather than keeping the construction methods and code under wraps, the researchers put it all onto the web freely so users can build their own versions.
When it comes to recycling materials in the trash, sorting that trash into specific types for recycling is a labor-intensive process. MIT has been working on a robot that can sort the recycling automatically without relying on vision. That is important as things that look like metal might not be metal.