Robert Playter

You have big, heavy legs.

You swing the legs.

It affects everything else.

And so dealing with all of that interaction does make the humanoid a much more complicated platform.

So we were definitely trying to show that the robot and the techniques we're applying to Atlas let us deal with heavy things in the world.

Because if the robot's gonna be useful, it's actually gotta move stuff around.

And that needs to be significant stuff.

That's an appreciable portion of the body weight of the robot.

And we also think this differentiates us from the other humanoid robot activities that you're seeing out there.

Mostly they're not picking stuff up yet.

And not heavy stuff, anyway.

But just like you or me, you need to anticipate that moment.

You're reaching out to pick something up, and as soon as you pick it up, your center of mass is gonna shift.

And if you're gonna turn in a circle, you have to take that inertia into account.

And if you're gonna throw a thing, you've got, all of that has to be sort of included in the model of what you're trying to do.

So the robot needs to have some idea or expectation of what that weight is, and then sort of

predict, you know, think a couple of seconds ahead, how do I manage my, now my, my body plus this big, heavy thing together to get, and, and still maintain balance.

Right.

And so, um, I, I, uh,

That's a big change for us.