Hasta La Ideas

Roboticists have solved many exciting challenges in recent years, and one of the most important is to ensure that robots remain really creepy. The UK-based team using slime mold to create facial expressions in their anthropomorphic ‘bot have succeeded admirably; not to be outdone, the team at Boston Dynamics are upping the ante with their quadripedal WildCat.

As you can see in the video below, the WildCat starts up with a suitably terrifying chainsaw/dirtbike noise; it raises itself confidently and menacingly; and it then becomes spasmodically excited about chasing down whatever enemies of Boston Dynamics exist. And crucially, there is no distinction between whether the headless ‘bot is running forwards or backwards, as the research team surely knows that that confusion will exponentially raise the terror quotient in any who view it.

While Boston Dynamics claims the WildCat can do “16 mph on flat terrain using bounding and galloping gaits,” the machine is so new that at press time it wasn’t yet posted on their website; they are presumably waiting until they have outfitted it with the appropriate combination of buzzsaw blades, electrified talons and perhaps disembodied clown heads on either side.

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