Top 10 Robot Videos on YouTube

Robots are cool, but unless you stop by Stanford regularly or make it to MIT often, chances are you don’t see that many in your day-to-day life.

That’s where the internet comes in, and specifically YouTube, which offers hours and hours of robo-themed footage for your on-demand entertainment.

So, grab the popcorn, hit up the videos now and let us know in the comments which automatons get your vote.

Oh, and should you subscribe the the belief that robots are pretty much evil and will eventually overturn their human masters and rule the world, then you might still want to watch these videos to check out the kind of tech on display and see how far off such an uprising might be.

1. Giant Robot Dinosaurs from Japan

A video entitled “Giant Robot Dinosaurs from Japan” is never not going to be good. The next logical step is clearly to use these creations in a new feature film called “Rob-assic Park” in which an amusement park gets overrun by robo-dinos while Jeff Goldblum stalks around looking tall and saying I told you so.

2. CES 07: Honda Asimo Humanoid Robot Demo

A bit of a YouTube star, if there’s ever a robot to be voted least likely to rise up against his human overlords, it’s Honda’s humanoid “Asimo” who resembles a kid in a space suit and boasts a nice line in running, climbing stairs and conducting symphony orchestras.

3. Aldebaran Robotics’ Nao

This amazingly advanced robot boasts cognitive skills, a high level of motion (with 25 degrees of freedom) and is programmable, so you can customize it to do pretty much anything. Currently available to academic institutions for a high price, a consumer model is planned for 2011, so watch the demo above to start getting excited.

4. Dancing Sony Robots

Sony’s Qrio (notable for being the first bipedal robot capable of running) never reached production (it’s development was axed at the same time robo-dog AIBO got his marching papers), but as this video shows it could bash out some sweet moves in its time.

5. BigDog Overview

The DARPA-funded BigDog is a quadruped robot designed to be used as a kind of robotic mule in the field. This video demonstrates its incredible stability over all kinds of terrain, and even when taking a hit. It’s certainly much improved from the early beta.

6. Toyota’s Robot Quartet Band

This video is in Japanese, but music, or for that matter robot awesomeness, needs no translation. If this has got you hot for robots playing instruments, then be sure to check out the violin-playing android, also from Toyota.

7. Hanson Robotics ALICE

Hanson Robotics busies itself by “awakening intelligent robotic beings and granting them sparks of true consciousness and creativity.” Its Alice-bot is one example of the progress it has made with giving robotics realistic facial impressions with the aim of enabling “machine empathy” in the future. Be afraid robo-phobes.

8. The Robot Barman

Human barkeeps fear for your future! This “alcohol administering automation” created for Japanese beer brand Asahi could well be tending bar in a few year’s time — if they can programme it to have selective vision and a suitable sneer when someone orders anything with “Lite” in its name.

9. Robot Fish

If you’ve got the technical ability to re-create something from the underwater world as a robot you’d go for a shark, right? Not these guys. They make a blue goldfish. And it doesn’t even have any frickin’ lasers.

10. NASA Robonaut Humanoid Space Robot

The benefits of using robots in oxygen-free outer space have not gone un-noticed by the NASA brainiacs. NASA’s Robonaut, a futuristic space-man with flexible fingers, could one day be used in space to carry out repairs, leaving the humans free for more important tasks. Like tweeting.

BONUS: Cleaning Cat Uses iRobot Roomba 560 Robotic Vacuum Cleaner

If the amount of videos on YouTube capturing cats sat on robotic vacuum cleaners is anything to go by, then the accepted wisdom that cats are clean animals certainly appears to be true.

More YouTube resources from Mashable:

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– Top 10 Wedding Dance Videos on YouTube
– Top 10 YouTube Cover Songs
– Top 10 LEGO Music Videos on YouTube
– Top 10 Funny Cat Videos on YouTube
– Top 10 Funny Dog Videos on YouTube

Tags: asimo, List, Lists, NASA, robots, Video Lists, videos, viral videos, youtube