Meet atlas, the Pentagon's 6′2″, 330-pound humanitarian robot. He was designed to save lives in disaster zones (like Fukushima). But while this Tin Man has a heart, he lacks a brain. In December, seven teams of scientists from top institutions-including MIT and Virginia Tech-will compete to code the bot for action. Each team will send its own Atlas into Darpa's trials, eight tasks that will test his ability to navigate degraded terrain, drive a utility vehicle, and enter buildings. "We designed Atlas to facilitate programming-but we expect Darpa to make the competition challenging," says Marc Raibert, president of Boston Dynamics, Atlas' maker. Here's the skinny on the massive bot.
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