In a new video, YouTuber Michael Reeves manages to transform Boston Dynamics’ doglike robot, Spot, into a party animal capable of autonomously identifying plastic cups, accurately squatting over them, and then, well, doing its “business.”
By business, in this case, we mean, of course, dispensing beer from a modified tubing system (effectively its, ahem, dog parts) that is connected to a keg mounted on top.
In fact, making a beer-peeing Spot requires some really clever problem solving on Reeves’ part. For instance, he circumvents computing shortfalls with the Raspberry Pi by instructing his vision software to register only the brightest pixels captured from Spot’s security camera. This shortcut ensures image capturing works smoothly in real-time.
Boston Dynamics is notably defensive about how Spot is presented in public, for instance, this installation from MSCHF marketing in which online gallery attendants remotely controlled a paintball hooked to Spot’s back drew some negative feedback from the company. And as you might expect, they weren’t exactly on board with Reeve’s pet project either.