Last year, Hyundai purchased Boston Dynamics – the creator of the internet’s popular dancing Spot and Atlas robots – from SoftBank in a $1.1 billion deal. Hyundai has officially completed its acquisition of the robotics firm and is celebrating with some dance moves.
The company collaborates with Korean pop sensation BTS on two new videos, one of which shows 7 Spot robots grooving to the band’s song “IONIQ: I’m On It.” A second video shows the South Korean boy band alongside a Spot robot, and both boy band and bot come together for a dance-off.
In a blog post, the company reveals how it carried out the more extended, coordinated dance routine, which involved precise programming (rather than using obstacle avoidance algorithms or built-in sensors that Spot usually uses to accomplish tasks and move around). “Everything had to be worked out in advance and scripted precisely,” said Boston Dynamics roboticist Eric Whitman.
To plan out Spot’s dance moves, the company worked with Monica Thomas, the professional choreographer Boston Dynamics worked with on its previous dancing robot videos.
These dance routines have forced the company to create new and improved tools to program the robots, like the “Choreographer” software used here —software already being used for entertainment purposes by Boston Dynamics Spot owners. “An athletic performance like dance stresses the mechanical design of the robot, and it also stresses the algorithms in the software,” explained Marc Raibert, Boston Dynamics founder and chairman.
The company’s last dancing video was a hit, with over 32 million views on YouTube. And, a collaboration with BTS, currently the biggest boy band in the world with a highly active fan base, will surely boost those numbers. In addition, Boston Dynamics hopes to lure companies to buy Spot robots through these videos. The robots cost $74,500 each.
These dancing videos bring to light the fun, playful side of the Spot robots, reinforcing them in the public mind as charming dancing machines rather than the real-world uses in which the robots have recently been deployed. That includes things like when the Massachusetts State Police leased Spot from Boston Dynamics for 90 days or simulated military exercises in France using Spot robots for reconnaissance work.
