Robots of Yore: Lab Footage From the 1980s to the Present

Wiggling robots, juggling robots, and even flying swarms of quadrotor robots—engineers at the University of Pennsylvania have developed a menagerie of bots over the decades. This short video focuses on work by Daniel E. Koditschek, Vijay Kumar, and Mark Yim, drawing from old video clips. Highlights include a six-legged robot driven by a human and early prototypes for the insect-like RHex. Edited by Kurtis Sensenig, the video promotes the Y-Prize competition, seeking suggestions for commercial applications for these machines.

Those drones flying in formation might look familiar; Sensenig also created the viral hit below, in which the swarm performs the James Bond theme song.

(Image via charles taylor/Shutterstock.com)