Videos: Holiday Robot Helpers, Dancing Robots, and More

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends on IEEE Spectrum robotics. We are also publishing a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months. Please send us your events for inclusion.

ICRA 2026: June 1-5, 2026, VIENNA

Enjoy today’s videos!

Happy Holidays from Boston Dynamics!

I would pay any amount of money for this lamp.

[ Boston Dynamics ]

What if evolution was not based on carbon, but rather on metal? This short film explores alternative iron-based evolution through robots, simulations, and real-world machines. Inspired by biological evolution, this laboratory Christmas film imagines a world where machines evolve instead of organisms.

[ ETH Zurich Robotics System Lab ]

Happy Holidays from FieldAI!

[ FieldAI ]

Happy holidays from the Institute of Robotics and Artificial Intelligence of Poznan University of Technology!

[ Poznan University of Technology IRMI ]

Happy Holidays from BruBotics!

[ AugmentX ]

Thanks, Bram!

[ Humanoid ]

Learn how SCUTTLE tackles the boring, dirty and dangerous tasks of the pest control industry.

[ Ground Control Robotics ]

Happy Holidays from LimX Dynamics!

[ LimX Dynamics ]

Happy Holidays (actually, maybe not AI?) from Kawasaki Robotics!

[ Kawasaki Robotics ]

Happy Holidays from AgileX Robotics

[ AgileX Robotics ]

Big news: badminton has just found a new training partner. Our humanoid robot can join forces with a human in continuous exchanges, combining rapid feedback and stable movements. The maximum return speed reaches 19.1 m/s.

[ Phybot ]

Well, here’s one way to deploy a legged robot.

[ Kepler ]

Today we present the world’s first video demonstration of a life-size robot tackling the difficult Charleston dance.

[ PNDbotics ]

The DR02 humanoid robot from DEEP Robotics demonstrates remarkable versatility and agility. From the graceful flow of Tai Chi to the energetic moves of street dance, DR02 easily combines precision, strength and artistry!

[ Deep Robotics ]

Decrease transformation cost in adaptive morphogenetic robots: Using laminar kirigami scrambling fins, the scrambling amphibious robotic turtle (JART) can quickly transform its limbs to adapt to changing terrain. This pneumatic layer scrambling technology enables multi-environment locomotion on land and water by changing the shape and stiffness of the robot’s fins to reduce the cost of transportation.

[ Paper ]

Super Odometry is a resilient sensor fusion framework that provides accurate real-time state estimation in harsh environments by integrating external and inertial sensing. For decades, SLAM has relied on external sensors like cameras and LiDAR. We believe it’s time to reverse this hierarchy: true robustness starts from within. By placing inertial sensing at the heart of state estimation, robots gain an internal sense of movement. We believe in systems that not only see, but also feel, learn and adapt.

[ AirLab ]