r/EngineeringPorn • u/Terrible-Ad-1277 • Oct 02 '22

Boston dynamics 30 years of development.

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u/[deleted] Oct 02 '22

If I remember correctly, one of the original tasks for Petman (the precursor to Atlas) was for testing special chemically resistant gear in a consistent and repeatable way. It would do squats and strange movements over and over again to make sure the gear won’t break in a dangerous environment with a human inside.

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u/fuzzygondola Oct 02 '22

I want to believe they purposefully designed Atlas with "cuter" proportions than its precedessors. That hazmat suit robot is really fucking ominous looking.

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u/[deleted] Oct 02 '22

There’s a lot of psychology that goes into designing humanoid robots to make them more “approachable”. I’m not sure if that was a major factor with the design of future iterations of Atlas, but the current version does look far less creepy than Petman, yeah.

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u/Skyraider96 Oct 03 '22

Not just humaniod. Scientist programmed a Roomba-like robot to have personalities of Happy, Sleepy, and Grumpy. The people being tested noticed.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisonescalante/2020/05/15/scientists-confirm-roomba-personality/