Video Friday: Robot Decommissioning Takes a Fun Turn

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

CoRL 2026: 9 — 12 November 2026, AUSTIN

Humanoids 2026: 6 — 9 December 2026, SANTA CLARA, CA

Enjoy today's videos!

It's possible that I wasn't the only one who thought that Figure's recent stunt was somewhat ridiculous.

Devanthro is in fact selling these plastic balls for $1000 each, and they'll arrive in time for Christmas.

[ Devanthro ]

Not that anyone uses ringtones anymore, but if we did, this would be absolutely everywhere and I'd be loving it.

[ Pollen ]

Let's not get too excited, but this thread-like linear motor is pretty sweet.

[ Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne LMTS ]

What is this robot for? It's for doing exactly what you see here, that's what it's for.

[ RAI Institute ]

Humanoid robots still struggle to plan contact-rich whole-body manipulation from egocentric RGB and proprioception. Workhorse learns such manipulation from robot-free human demonstrations. On a real Unitree G1, Workhorse sorts boxes with its hands and a kick, catches a thrown box, and topples and climbs a suitcase.

Yeah that happens to me too when I have a communication failure.

[ Hybrid Robotics ]

A car wash that models your vehicle then cleans it with robot arms? Interesting idea.

The recent reviews from this location suggest that the robots aren't quite up to snuff yet, but really seems like there's potential here.

[ KUKA ]

So this is not the worst idea I've ever seen for what to do with humanoid robots.

[ DEEP Robotics ]

Some lovely manipulation with a deceptively simple gripper.

[ Generalist ]

I am genuinely embarrassed to say that this robot dances better than I do.

MIT researchers developed SANDO, a new navigation system that helps robots safely navigate unfamiliar environments while avoiding moving obstacles. The system can rapidly plan and adjust a collision-free path using onboard sensors and computing, with safety backed by mathematical guarantees.

[ MIT News ]

Can you spot the part of this video that I'm side eyeing?

Yep, it's where the middle clip starts after the hand already has a good grip on that peelable strip.

[ Sanctuary AI ]

Inspired by feather stars, the NC State researchers report a soft underwater swimming robot capable of achieving three distinct swimming modes — jellyfish-like vertical swimming, fish-like directional steering, and rotor-like 3D reorientation — using only two pneumatic inputs.

Here's a series of mini-keynotes from ICRA earlier this year, on manipulation, humaonids, and embodied design.

[ ICRA 2026 ]

Evan Ackerman is a senior editor at IEEE Spectrum. Since 2007, he has written over 6,000 articles on robotics and technology. He has a degree in Martian geology and is excellent at playing bagpipes.