It might sound terribly morbid, but part of the fascination of watching a human perform a dangerous tightrope walk is the risk that they could potentially fall. So when you’ve got a robot risking its life, the stunt is considerably less exciting.
But that’s not to say that a robot slowly inching its way over a tightrope wire isn’t impressive. Because watching Dr Guero’s Primer-V4 slowly shuffle its way across with impeccable balance is pretty neat — and would be even without this video’s pounding techno soundtrack. On a technical level it’s definitely awesome. It’s just that knowing the robot’s only a few replacement parts away from walking again after a tragic fall makes the whole stunt slightly less enthralling. [A.I. & Robot via Robots Dreams]