Getting to Know the Oli Humanoid Robot (by Dancing)
In an empty hotel suite, I was treated to an exclusive hands-on demonstration of Oli, a 5-foot-5 humanoid robot from LimX Dynamics that’s making its U.S. debut. It came preloaded with about a dozen dance numbers (maybe more), and I asked to see them all. I also tried my best to keep up.
In a world where many companies are pursuing autonomy and videos of dancing robots have been circulating the Internet for years, many people might not be impressed by a remote-controlled dancing robot demonstration.
Oli from LimX Dynamics makes his US debut.
However, Oli, like most robots, is not designed to be autonomous from the start. The EDU version I tried is aimed at developers, universities and research teams who will work with these robots to program new capabilities, some of which may be autonomous.
With this in mind, walking a robot around using a remote control and observing its range of movement through dancing is an effective (and non-threatening) way to test what it can do.
It’s also a lot of fun.
Speaking of fun, I also got to try out LimX Dynamics’ much shorter bipedal robot, Tron 1. It comes with three sets of “feet”: flat feet, pointed feet, and wheels. On the latter it is incredibly fast, both in a straight line and going in circles.
The front of the Tron 1 bipedal robot from LimX Dynamics.
It’s also quite sturdy. I knocked it over several times, and although a small piece of plastic broke off, it came back together every time.
Both robots from LimX Dynamics are designed to be customizable for different use cases. On Oli, his head and hands can be swapped. On Tron 1, different sensor packages and robotic arms can be added to the top to unlock new abilities.
Both robots are available now, with the Tron 1 EDU version starting at $20,000 and the Oli EDU model starting at $60,000.
To watch my dance battle with Oli and our hands-on demo with the Tron 1, watch the videos in this article.
