The founder of Boston Dynamics tells how he taught robots to dance

It took a year and a half to teach robots to dance almost like humans—smoothly, but energetically and in tact.

choreography lessons, modeling,programming and updates. The now-legendary clip shows robots dancing to the 1962 hit “Do You Love Me?” The Contours filmed in just two days. The video, less than 3 minutes long, became an instant hit on social networks. In one week, the clip collected more than 23 million views.

In the video two humanoids are dancingBoston Dynamics' Atlas exploration robot is joined by Spot, a robot dog, and Handle, a robot on wheels designed to lift and move boxes in a warehouse or truck.

The founder of Boston Dynamics, Mark Reibert, said the experience of teaching dance robots was very valuable.

The challenging task of teaching robots to dancepushed Boston Dynamics engineers to develop better motion programming tools that would allow robots to coordinate balance, bounce, and dance steps at the same time.

“It turned out that we need to modernize the robotsin mid development. To dance non-stop, they needed more energy and “strength,” explains Raibert. “So we’ve moved from very crude tools to efficient ones with the ability to generate quickly.”

The robots' dancing was so good that some online viewers said they couldn't believe their eyes. Some applauded the robots' movements and the technology they are built on. 

"We didn't want the robot to dance,like a robot. Our goal was to create a robot that would dance with people, like a person himself, to the rhythm of music, which obeys all parts of the body - arms, legs, torso, head. I think we’ve succeeded,” concludes the founder of Boston Dynamics.

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