Max Imagination set out to build a remote-controlled butterfly that could leave the ground under its own power, and ESP-FLUTTER manages exactly that. Weighing 70 grams complete with battery, the machine relies on two high-speed coreless digital servos to drive independent wings rather than a single motor and linkage. Those wings stretch thin plastic from supermarket produce bags across carbon-fiber rods, then carry roughly 50 tiny surface-mount LEDs per side wired with fine enameled copper. The result is an ornithopter that generates both lift and thrust through flapping motion while remaining light enough to stay airborne.

People handle boxes, doors, and tools with an ease that still frustrates most machines. A hand adjusts mid-reach when something feels heavier than expected, pulls against a sticky latch, or tosses an item into a bin without stopping to recalculate. Reward AI built OM-1, short for Omnibody Model 1, to move that kind of everyday competence into robots by recording ordinary human actions and training one policy on those recordings alone.

ANYbotics began shipping ANYmal X to customers this week, giving oil, gas, and chemical plants their first four-legged inspection robot certified to operate in areas where a single spark could ignite flammable gas. Equinor and DSM-Firmenich are among the first recipients. For years the Swiss company refined the machine through an early-access program that put units through hundreds of onshore and offshore missions with BP, Shell, PETRONAS, Petrobras, BASF, and SLB.

Boston Dynamics’ Spot spent years demonstrating careful, coordinated movements inside instrumented rooms, yet the real test has always been whether those same skills could survive once the ceiling cameras and external computers disappeared. Researchers at the RAI Institute have now answered that question by teaching the robot to upright, roll, and drag a 15-kilogram car tire across ordinary outdoor surfaces using nothing more than the depth cameras already mounted on its body and a compact computer riding onboard. The tire still outweighs what the arm alone can lift, so the legs, torso, and arm continue to share the load, only this time the entire decision process runs locally and continuously.

Unitree released a short video this week introducing the H2-X Kung Fu Legend Guardian, a full-size humanoid built on the company’s existing H2 platform and positioned for security and rescue work. In the opening sequences the robot climbs onto the roof of a scrapyard car, flips off, then delivers knees, elbows, and punches that leave clear dents in doors and hoods. It jumps from a platform labeled four meters high, lands, rolls, and stands again, then chains aerial kicks and backflips amid sparks. Unitree states the footage is real and has not been sped up.