When we last saw a robotic humanoid from Boston Dynamics, it was PETMAN strutting it’s stuff on a moving walkway and doing pushups. Now, the bot’s developers and the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) are showing off a robot with a new and terrifying trick: Walking up stairs. But that might just be a glimpse of what will be coming in the future.

Drexel University recently acquired a bunch of HUBO humanoid robots for their engineers. What exactly do you do with robots like these? No end of worthy experimentation, I’m sure, but Drexel went the extra mile to show off their new robots by having them perform “Come Together” by the Beatles. It’s probably one of the best uses of robots you’ll see today.

If you want a haircut you can walk out of the house with, you might want to go with a human barber. If you’re shooting for something less, uh, conventional, a clipper-wielding Multi-Arm Unmanned Ground Vehicle might be an option. This dude from Intelligent Automation Inc. opted for the latter when he got his St. Baldrick’s day haircut, and had the process filmed for science! and your entertainment. If you’re not familiar, St. Baldrick’s day generally involves completely shaving your head and collecting donations to help fund childhood cancer research, so this poor guy probably had a human help finish him off afterwards. As amusing as it is to watch, I certainly want to keep having my hair cut by humans. Or I guess I might be OK with a Flowbee. Maybe.

Right now, efforts are underway to bring the airborne military drones that have been so widely used in overland conflicts onto aircraft carriers. There’s a number of enormous challenges to be met first, not the least of which is how these robotic fliers will interact with humans on the decks. Looking to solve that problem, and improve natural human-machine communication while he’s at it, is Yale Song, a Ph.D. student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who has begun teaching a computer to obey the hand signals used by aircraft carrier crews to communicate with pilots.

While drones have been credited with much success overseas, even being used in an ongoing campaign in Pakistan, the use of unmanned aerial vehicles has remained limited here in the U.S.. Part of the reason for the hesitation to embrace the technology domestically was demonstrated recently in Texas when a prototype drone being used in a photo-op went hay-wire and crashed into a nearby police vehicle. Looks like we’ve got a while before Skynet takes out humanity.

A team of clever robotics-minded folks from Cornell University and the University of Chicago have demonstrated a truly novel way for robots to interact with the world around them. Their “Positive Pressure Universal Gripper” can pick up and toss an object of just about any shape without the need for pesky and complex hands. Instead, their gripper uses a robotic arm with — no kidding — a balloon.

Proving that if it cane be done, it can be done with LEGOs, YouTube user sumthinelse5790 presents this amazing robotic arm made entirely from LEGO pieces. Though its strength is limited, it has a full range of motion designed to mimic that of a human being. This emphasis on lifelike motion is important, as its creator designed it as a prosthetic arm — assuredly as an experiment than an exercise in practicality. Though impressive in its own right, the complexity of the LEGO robotic arm is a gentle reminder of how amazing the human body really is. See the video, after the break.

Jordan Correa and his wife had a problem. Because they both worked full-time jobs, they weren’t able to spend time at home during the day with their new dog Darwin. Instead of painfully readjusting their lives, Correa did what any man with training in robotics and engineering would do: He built a telepresence robot surrogate that he could control from work to play with his dog. You know, the obvious solution.

The short answer is “no.” The long answer is actually really interesting, and has to do with the nature of the mirror test, the design of the robot, and the roots of intelligence. Also, there’s a fun video of the robot, whose name, incidentally, is Qbo (“que-bee-oh”) learning to recognize himself in a mirror. So let’s get started, shall we?

By and large, robots have relied on the rigidity and strength of metal and plastics to give them form, and to interact with the world around them. The engineers at Otherlab are looking to change that with robots like Ant-Roach, a whimsical inflatable robot modeled after the noble ant-eater and the ever-survivable cockroach.

Though that pedigree is, perhaps, less than appealing, the Ant-Roach shows off the incredible things inflatable robots can accomplish.