Adam Savage from Tested here in the Tested offices and it's the holiday
season in San Francisco as I'm talking to you right now. It's early December but
Christmas has come early and I'm sitting on the best thing a little boy or a girl
could want. Inside this box is Boston Dynamics' Spot robotic dog. This is
an object I have coveted for years - literally years - and at Tested we are going
to do development with SSpot for the next year. We're gonna spend some time getting
to know him and increasing his abilities and learning from him and it all begins
today with the orientation. Oh my gosh.
Time for some adventures!
Some breathing room. We've stepped out of the Tested shop and we are actually in
one of my old stomping grounds. I'm standing on one of the training courses
for the Alameda County Sheriff's Department in Dublin, Pleasanton,
California. Right over there is the bomb range where we blew everything up on
MythBusters. We swam in syrup over there. I learned how to tactically drive
backwards and ini heels right over there. It's the perfect location to test all of
the things about Spot that we want to learn. About his gait, his ability to
handle different kinds of terrain. All right, Spot. You ready? Let's go.
These rocks and this tunnel underneath the rocks is the perfect first test run.
I'm gonna try him over and then I'm gonna try him through.
All right, Spot.
Oh my god. Oh, Spot, you almost did it. I'm gonna try
this again. This is a really difficult thing for anything to walk over but
we're gonna give it our best shot. I think this is largely operator error but
we're just going to keep on keeping on. Here we go.
I've adjusted him to a crawl gait and hopefully this will give him a more
stable ... Dude! Spot! You are amazing. Holy cow, buddy.
That was amazing.
I'm gonna put him through the tunnel.
Oh yeah, Spot!
All right. We've gone over and we've gone through. Now it's time to go under.
Here we go.
Wow, OK. All right, that's the limit. That's the limit.
He's reaching the absolute critical limit with stuff on his back,
the ports and everything. He wasn't gonna make it past that one. I've always
thought these things were magnificent pieces of engineering every time I've
seen them but actually running them through his paces makes it clear on an
even deeper level what a miracle Spot is. The last thing we're gonna do on this
course is some stairs. Yeah, up and down stairs. This is the thing I find the most
uncanny and amazing. Now, Spot does so much of the figuring out on his own but
when I bring him over to the stairs I'm actually gonna put him in stair mode
which is a specific gate for climbing these things we call stairs. Here we go.
This is certainly an astonishingly capable platform and we've got a full
year to figure out all sorts of fun stuff to do with Spot. I think it's the
start of a beautiful relationship. Spot is very smart. He needs a lot of stimulus.
You can do it, buddy.