Decommissioning humanoid robots that are packed with proprietary tech is a tricky thing – you want to make sure none of the expensive raw material goes to waste, but you also need to make sure no one else gets a hold of your tech. The solution? Have your robots hurl themselves into a vat of molten steel, Terminator 2-style.
Let’s start with the obvious question: yes, they really did it. Figure had its second-generation F.02 robots march into a vat of molten steel – and the idea came from Mr. T-800, himself.
Terminate them
“None of the metal foundries we contacted in the US and Mexico would let us jump a robot with lithium-ion batteries into their expensive [foundry] equipment,” reads the official Figure copy. “We even reached out to former MythBusters to help with the search. In the end, the only place in the world we could find willing to take this on was a foundry in Imatra, Finland.”
Once they found a foundry (sorry), the next step was programming the robots actually make the leap. To that end, Figure got to work, setting up large airbags and started teaching its robots to jump off the second floor of one of the buildings at the company’s corporate campus at San Jose, California. The team used motion capture from stunt performers as references to train a new AI model in simulation that would help the robots jump accurately into a bucket of molten steel, at a foundry they’d never visited.
The result looks absolutely ridiculous, and I am here for it.
Do a flip!
Once at the foundry, three massive graphite electrodes powering a 75-ton electric arc furnace designed to melt solid steel scrap got to work. Despite the extreme heat and intense electromagnetic fields, the Figure F.02 robots ran their AI programs seamlessly, even as camera equipment and other electronics failed in this environment.
“After the F.02 melt in Finland, we sent the resulting metal bars back to the US with a new purpose,” reads the copy. “That metal is now being machined into a limited series of artifacts commemorating F.02. Only a small number will be made, preserving a piece of Figure’s history in a compact package that you can own.”
All of which makes sense, because: capitalism – but I desperately hope they melt these down into little Terminator skulls. You can let us know what you think they should build out of the leftovers, in the comments.
SOURCE | IMAGES: Figure, via Interesting Engineering, Think Foundry.
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