Humanoid robots used to be the kind of thing you’d only see in big-budget projects, but now they’re showing up in garages and basements, thanks to the Berkeley Humanoid Lite. This open-source, 3D-printed installation from UC Berkeley’s engineering crew is as welcoming to newcomers as it is innovative, coming in at under $5,000 and ready to shake up how we interact with robotics.
Surveying a construction site used to mean long days of sweaty work, pounding stakes into the ground, and hoping your measurements didn’t go wonky. Then along comes CivDot, a nimble little robot from Civ Robotics that’s turning that old grind into something almost magical.
A robot dog that can pick up a ball and hurl it across a field sounds like something a Pixar movie, but researchers at ETH Zurich have turned this concept into reality. Their creation, a quadruped named ANYmal, doesn’t just walk or run—it manipulates objects with a precision that rivals human dexterity.
K-Scale Labs is quietly reshaping robotics’ future in an unassuming Palo Alto garage. Their goal? To roll out a fully open-source humanoid robot for just $999—a steal that beats most high-end smartphones. This is essentially Z-Bot, a developer-friendly platform built to bring embodied intelligence to everyone.
Humanoid robots have mostly been stuck with walking, grabbing, or at best, tripping through obstacle courses. But the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Genoa smashed that limit with iRonCub3, the world’s first jet-powered humanoid robot to nail controlled flight.
A robot that rolls like a wheel and zips through the air like a drone might sound wild, but the team at the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) pulled it off. Say hello to ATOM, the Aerial Transforming Omnidirectional Mechanism—a light-as-a-feather hybrid that flips between ground and sky with just two moving parts.
Tesla’s Optimus, and other humanoid robots, may soon be able to feel, literally. How so? A newly developed robotic skin capable of mimicking human touch. This marks a sensory leap forward, as in a single-material marvel that detects pressure, shear, and temperature in one seamless package.
