Well Skynet is certainly sitting in a dimly lit server room rubbing virtual hands together, because the future of mankind and robots is going forward, in force, with Boston Dynamic’s latest version of Big Dog, which happens to be very successfully hurling cinderblocks.
Boston Dynamic’s animal-based robot, the Cheetah, based off of Ray Bradbury’s terrifying apocalyptic firemen dog already held the title for the world’s fastest bot at eighteen miles per hour. Now these Red Sox superstars have built a fierce robot for the Pentagon called, aptly, Big Dog, and it is increasingly apparent that these inventors have to be huge fans of the book and/or movie Fahrenheit 451.
Keep your books safely hidden away or the Big Dog’ll get you!
Big Dog, or BigDog, looks part mechanical bull and part needle stabbing law enforcement assailant.
The Army Research Laboratory at Boston Dynamic has already showed off this bad bot traversing pits and marred land to show its prowess across uneven terrain. But now they have taught the old dogbot new tricks, and gave it a tail that is actually a powerful arm adept at hurling heavy objects across significant distances.
With drones already taking over for man in the U.S. Air Force, it looks like man’s best friend, the Big Dog, might be taking over for our Army troops on the ground in the near future.
If you were not terrified of the robot apocalypse before, then watch as the robot coordinates its arm’s movement with its legs and torso to really put its back into throwing the cinder block in the video above.
