While the rest of the humanoid pack is still getting to grips with shifting boxes, PNDRobotics’ Adam is busy mastering the Charleston. In what’s being billed as a world first for a full-scale robot, Adam’s unnervingly fluid footwork is driven by 41 degrees of freedom and high-torque actuators capable of churning out hundreds of Newton-metres. It’s a display of dynamic balance that, until very recently, would have been dismissed as clever CGI. If the machines are coming for us, at least they’re doing it with impeccable rhythm.
