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It;s the end of another year and one of our cherished past times here at CNet is to take a look back at all the awesome new robot achievements that happened.
There were a bunch of great milestones for robots in 2018 and these are our absolute favorites.
Let's kick things off with a four-legged robot beast with a special kind of handicap.
Cheetah-3 is an MIT creation and it's pretty impressive.
it's a blind robot, meaning it doesn't use any vision based tech like cameras to navigate the world around it.
The idea is to develop a robot that can use feel or touch to figure out how to traverse things like uneven terrain.
And 2018 we watched cheater 3 take a wobbly journey up a Short staircase.
In the future we may see Cheetah Three's descendants performing work deemed too dangerous for humans.
Lion locomotion never looked so good.
Now that we've celebrated a cat robot how about a doggo?
It's Sony's AIBO.
This adorable little robot dog got a reboot this year, and our very own Bridget Carey spent a week with AIBO Introducing it to her daughter, a real dog, and some senior citizens.
She found it charming especially for a dog that runs off a battery, it's the only robot on our list you can actually buy.
But the almost $3,000 price tag is enough to scare away all but the most dedicated robo dog fans from picking one up.
It's still an amazing achievement and future iterations can go a long way and acting as companions for anyone who can't handle a live pet.
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Gee.
Thanks.
A robot dog might not be in your future but there's a good chance our next entry might make an appearance in your life.
Disney's Stickman started off as a straight piece of metal but soon evolved into a robotic stunt double capable of some pretty incredible acrobatics.
In 2018 we watched as Disney Imagineering Research and Development released the video showing off the newest iteration [UNKNOWN] stick man doing tricks even the bravest stunt doubles might think twice about.
These machines are the future of Disney's already believable animatronics and will likely perform at shows at Disney Park around the globe sometime in the future.
The only misstep, not naming it hallowbot.
So obvious Another humanesque robot made our list this year but it's a little less entertainment and a little more terminator.
It's Atlas, one of our all-time favorite robots.
This bi-pedal bot has been in the public eye since 2013, and now, five years later, Boston Dynamics swell super machine learned how to parkour.
Every major milestone from him is always a delight to watch And this year's update was no different.
He leapt over a log he bounded over boxes and pretty soon he'll be hunting humans for sport and trying to kill John Connor.
Of course I;m joking I'm joking or am I.
And last but certainly not lease on our list of 2018s greatest robo achievements it's NASA's insight rover.
We all watched this global scientific effort reach Mars in November, touching down and marking the first major spacecraft landing on the red planet since Curiosity did it in 2012.
It's got a big job.
Insight is designed to study Mars' crust, mantle, and core.
Hopefully providing scientists with new information about rocky planet formation in our Own solar system.
We've already gotten some selfies from InSight as well as some audio from Mars itself.
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We'll definitely be watching inside Twitter feed for more as is mission continues.
So those are our favorites, was there something we miss?
Scream really loudly at your screens so that I can hear you.
We can't wait to see what 2019 hold for the future of robotics.
Until next year, be good meat backs.
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