Credit: Unsplash
In the absolute silliest way possible.
The only thing more fun than engaging in a bout of old-school technological research and development is engaging in incredibly silly and pointless technological research and development. There are some truly pointless inventions out there, but the process that goes into creating them is still pretty entertaining, both because it demonstrates a good understanding of the development process, and because it shows that even the technologically-minded aren’t above good old fashioned toilet humor.
YouTuber Michael Reeves, a tinkerer who has created such head-scratching devices as a baby doll with laser vision, a microwave powered by screaming, and a device that plucks tomatoes out of salads, recently got his hands on one of Boston Dynamics’ infamous “Spot” robotic dog units. Spot is an impressive device in its own right, fully mobile and articulate on four balanced legs, but for Reeves, that simply wasn’t enough. He wouldn’t rest until Spot was both more anatomically accurate, and providing some kind of practical service to him. Yep, he taught it to urinate beer.
Boston Dynamics’ robot dog Spot has been taught to pee beer on commandhttps://t.co/59wLcZ2EJZ pic.twitter.com/s5Ku4Y4UYt
— The Verge (@verge) April 12, 2021
Over the course of his video, Reeves carefully Frankenstein’d a beer keg and dispenser mechanism onto the back of the robotic quadruped, moving past several beer-related misfires. With some special re-coding, he gave Spot the ability to detect the presence of a red solo cup, walk over it, position its newly-installed rubber hose, and… relieve itself into the cup, leaving behind a frosty cold cup of beer.
According to Reeves, his desire to modify Spot in such a strange way was something of an act of defiance against Boston Dynamics, who claimed that their devices like Spot were intended only for construction purposes. As Reeves has demonstrated in his many videos, no device has a singular static purpose, at least if he’ll have anything to say about.
