Video Friday: Unitree’s A2 Quadruped Goes Exploring

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends at IEEE Spectrum robotics. We also post a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months. Please send us your events for inclusion.

World Humanoid Robot Games: 15-17 August 2025, BEIJINGRO-MAN 2025: 25-29 August 2025, EINDHOVEN, THE NETHERLANDSCLAWAR 2025: 5-7 September 2025, SHENZHEN, CHINAACTUATE 2025: 23-24 September 2025, SAN FRANCISCOCoRL 2025: 27-30 September 2025, SEOULIEEE Humanoids: 30 September-2 October 2025, SEOULWorld Robot Summit: 10-12 October 2025, OSAKA, JAPANIROS 2025: 19-25 October 2025, HANGZHOU, CHINA

Enjoy today's videos!

The A2 sets a new standard in quadruped robots, balancing endurance, strength, speed, and perception.

The A2 weighs 37 kg (81.6 lbs) unloaded. Fully loaded with a 25 kg (55 lb) payload, it can continuously walk for 3 hours or approximately 12.5 km. Unloaded, it can continuously walk for 5 hours or approximately 20 km. Hot-swappable dual batteries enable seamless battery swap and continuous runtime for any mission.

[ Unitree ]

Thanks, William!

ABB is working with Cosmic Buildings to reshape how communities rebuild and transform construction after disaster. In response to the 2025 Southern California wildfires, Cosmic Buildings are deploying mobile robotic microfactories to build modular homes on-site-cutting construction time by 70% and costs by 30%.

[ ABB ]

Thanks, Caitlin!

How many slightly awkward engineers can your humanoid robot pull?

[ MagicLab ]

The physical robot hand does some nifty stuff at about 1 minute in.

[ ETH Zurich Soft Robotics Lab ]

Biologists, you can all go home now.

[ AgileX ]

The World Humanoid Robot Games start next week in Beijing, and of course Tech United Eindhoven are there.

[ Tech United ]

Our USX-1 Defiant is a new kind of autonomous maritime platform, with the potential to transform the way we design and build ships. As the team prepares Defiant for an extended at-sea demonstration, program manager Greg Avicola shares the foundational thinking behind the breakthrough vessel.

[ DARPA ]

After loss, how do you translate grief into creation? Meditation Upon Death is Paul Kirby's most personal and profound painting-a journey through love, loss, and the mystery of the afterlife. Inspired by a conversation with a Native American shaman and years of artistic exploration, Paul fuses technology and traditional art to capture the spirit's passage beyond. With 5,796 brushstrokes, a custom-built robotic painting system, and a vision shaped by memory and devotion, this is the most important painting he has ever made.

[ Dulcinea ]

Thanks, Alexandra!

In the fourth installment of our Moonshot Podcast Deep Dive video interview series, X's Captain of Moonshots Astro Teller sits down with Andrew Ng, the founder of Google Brain and DeepLearning.AI, for a conversation about the history of neural network research and how Andrew's pioneering ideas led to some of the biggest breakthroughs in modern-day AI.

[ Moonshot Podcast ]