CAN YOU SPOT THE FUTURE?

If 2 years ago somebody had told me that the first futuristic robot which would be released would be in the form of a dog, I wouldn't have believed them. Boston Dynamics recently released their robot named "Spot" after years of working on perfecting their technology. Costing around $75000, the robot can be used in many industries,including Healthcare,Entertainment, Transportation in Oil & Gas plants and many more. The Spot is a 4-legged robot "dog", and it can do many things that ten years ago people would have deemed impossible for a robot. It can climb terrains,walk at 3 miles per hour(5 km per hour approximately), and also rotate 360 degrees, and to top it all off, it can perform lots of programmed tasks. Straight out the packaging, it comes with two battery packs, a full touchscreen android tablet which acts as the controller and also the actual robot body.

While the robot debuted in 2015, it was only made commercially available last month, prior to which companies would have to request Boston Dynamics to send them a Spot robot, and it was very difficult to get one as they used to be very selective with whom to give the robot. But as soon as the robot was made available for retail, videos and clips of it doing mind- blowing tricks went viral, and in one of them, it was seen pulling a truck(YES!!!). Micheal Perry,VP of business development at Boston Dynamics has deemed the robot's abilities to be "seemingly limitless", and rightfully so, as the robot can do so many tasks that humans are unable to perform. It can reach places that humans cannot and in one test which was done by an early adopter, the robot was sent to various decommissioned nuclear sites where it is illegal to send humans. It is also of great use as it can work for longer hours than humans and has greater efficiency.

Spot has also played a huge role in enforcing social distancing during the coronavirus pandemic. In Singapore, at a theme park, Spot robots were used to patrol grounds while also encouraging people to maintain social distancing.In Quebec, a construction company used Spot to map progress on a 500000 square foot building. I took thousands of photos of the site each week and saved the company a lot of time.

"The commercial customers for Spot have seen its benefits reducing risk,increasing frequency and quality of data capture,and leveraging companies' existing talent for more complex tasks to generate value far beyond the cost of the robot"Micheal Perry says. In case you're worried that robots are going to take over the world, and we're all going to die, you needn't worry as Boston Dynamics has made sure that companies make "beneficial use of its robots". The future for robots seems very bright and we can see lots of developments in the future. The Spot robot is only the beginning, and it won't be long until we're all surrounded by robots and everything is automated. Science is a boon and technology is the tomorrow, it resonates with the young people as it is not only intellectually challenging but also quintessential to survive the fast growing modern world.