Watch Humanoid Robots Compete to Become the First Responders of the Future

They’re fright­en­ing look­ing, the ro­bots. Adult-male-tall hu­manoid tangles of met­al, cables, and cir­cuitry form be­ings that are more like the jae­gers from Pa­cific Rim than the ser­vantile be­ings in iRo­bot. And one day, the des­cend­ants of these pieces of tech­no­logy may save you from a burn­ing build­ing.

This week­end, DARPA (De­fense Ad­vanced Re­search Pro­jects Agen­cies) is host­ing a com­pet­i­tion for ro­bot first re­spon­ders in Flor­ida. Sev­en­teen teams — from uni­versit­ies, private com­pan­ies, and NASA — are com­pet­ing to demon­strate how their cre­ations can be the first re­spon­ders of the fu­ture. As brave as a per­son can be, there are still some work en­vir­on­ments com­pletely un­suit­able for hu­mans. For ex­ample: a ra­dio­act­ive spill at a nuc­le­ar-power plant. The ro­bots will com­pete in tasks that seem ba­sic to us hu­mans — drive a vehicle through an obstacle course, climb a lad­der, re­move debris from a door, open that door, use power tools, and un­reel a hose. If you’re bored at work today, DARPA is broad­cast­ing the tri­als live: