With the FIFA World Cup less than a fortnight away, even the robots are going crazy for football.
The Atlas humanoid robot from Boston Dynamics has undergone many iterations since the first model was introduced in 2013. Altas went from being able to do a box jump to parkour and breakdancing. Atlas does sometimes fall down, but it's all part of the learning process.
The latest model of Atlas is learning to play football — or soccer, to us uncivilized Americans — just in time for the World Cup, which begins on June 11. In a series of videos, Atlas runs football drills with incredible agility, although it doesn't quite make one of the jumps, and later needs a little human assistance after an ankle turn causes it to collapse into a heap.
Atlas is also apparently learning to be toxic, as it performs the "take the L" emote perfectly. Perhaps the next block of instruction for Atlas should be about empathy.
