Valentine’s Day was fairly uneventful for me this year, but humankind made significant progress that day. Trevor Blackwell, a very smart man and a friend of Paul Graham, got his robot, Dexter, to walk with dynamic balancing.
The video is one of the most amazing things I’ve watched in my life. It was like the first time I saw a video of Apollo 11 lifting off. Its heroic effort to walk like a human walks, and to stay up on two feet, is amazing to see. I can see Trevor Blackwell’s effort in the robot’s movement. It looks like the robot is feeling the moment.
It’s a must-see.
Trevor’s creation is at Anybots, Inc., a company he founded that develops robot software. They have a website, and they’re hiring. A requirement in the “Join Our Team” page is hubris — one of the three great virtues of programming.