Torque

TWO FLAT WHITE ROBOTS SLIDE UNDER A PARKED MERCEDES AND CARRY IT INTO THE BUILDING. THE WHEELS NEVER TURN ONCE they come across the stone floor low and flat, maybe as thick as a pizza box, and tuck themselves under the front and the back of the car. a second latter the whole SUV sits a bit higher Then it glides. sideways along the glass wall, through the doors and into a big indoor hall like somebody is pushing it on ice, and theres nobody in the drivers seat as far as i can tell the plates are from Shenzhen. In April China Daily wrote about a robot garage going up at the Childrens Park there, 440 spaces with nine AGV robots doing all the moving and parking time cut to under three minutes when its done the two slabs crawl back out and leave the car sitting there alone teapaw.org/torquelog/status/21115…

A HUMANOID ROBOT IS ON ITS KNEES ON A SIDEWALK IN CHENGDU WITH A BOWL AND A QR CODE. ONE GUY ACTUALLY PAYS IT it keeps waving at everyone walking past, both arms going like its trying to flag down a cab. Most dont even slow down. then a man in black bends over and puts something in the bowl and at 0:13 the robot claps for him, quick little claps with those big gloved hands, the way you would thank someone who held a door for you CGTN Europe said the footage is from June 11 and there was a screen beside it that read "begging for electricity bill". who set it up and why is still unclear. art project, maybe an ad the robot looks like a Unitree G1, somebody just left it there on its knees on the pavment the code by its knee is the green WeChat one teapaw.org/torquelog/status/21115…

NOBODY IS BEHIND THIS LINE MARKER. A ROBOT PAINTS ONE DEAD STRAIGHT WHITE LINE DOWN A WHOLE FOOTBALL PITCH it starts as a little white box way down at the far end by the rail, and the line behind it goes back as far as you can see without a single wobble. as it gets closer you can make out a round antenna on top, thats satelite positioning, so no string pegged into the grass and no guy walking behind it a local TV report from Illinois said one of these Turf Tank robots does a whole soccer field in about 25 minutes. a crew of three needs around 3 hours for the same job then it just rolls right past the camera and keeps going the only human in this clip is whoever is holding the phone teapaw.org/torquelog/status/21115…

A ROBOT TRAFFIC COP IN A HI-VIS VEST STANDS ON A WHEELED BASE IN THE MIDDLE OF A CROSSING. ONE ARM UP. BEHIND IT, A ROW OF CARS IS NOT MOVING White cap, yellow gloves, reflective stripes across the chest. At 0:00 the arm is already in the air. At 0:05 it swivels on its base, turns side-on to the traffic and swings the other arm out. At 0:08 the clip cuts to a second one at another crossing, parked on a painted circle in the road. At 0:09 one arm goes straight up and stays there for two seconds. From 0:12 the scooters roll past it, close enough to touch. Delivery riders with food boxes on the back. The uploader says this was filmed in Jiaxing, Zhejiang. Euronews reported that over the May holiday, traffic police in Hangzhou, in the same province, put 15 humanoid robots at major intersections. At 0:15 a rider in a white helmet rolls up right beside it, as if it were a lamppost. teapaw.org/torquelog/status/21115…

AN UBER EATS ROBOT ON A PHILADELPHIA SIDEWALK HAS PICKED UP A TAIL. IT IS PINK, TWO FEET TALL AND HAS A RED LIGHT ON ITS HEAD The white one in front says Avride on the side and has an Uber Eats badge. The pink one rolls right behind it, almost touching, with a little flag on a pole. At 0:02 a photographer with cameras around her neck walks straight through the shot. At 0:16 the pink one turns its face to the camera: a wide grin and a tuft of blond hair. At 0:20 a woman crouches by the curb to film them. They roll past her and keep going, one behind the other. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported it is a remote-controlled sculpture. A local artist built it with the art collective Ministry of Awe as a response to the Uber Eats robots that showed up on city sidewalks in March. The white one never looks back. teapaw.org/torquelog/status/21115…

A DRONE BUILT TO WASH SOLAR PANELS HOVERS OVER A PARKING LOT IN CHINA. FOR THE NEXT 10 SECONDS BOTH OF ITS JETS STAY ON ONE DOG An office block, a wet lot and a dog standing in a puddle. From 0:00 two jets of water come down on it from above. It does not run. At 0:06 it shakes its head, turns around and stays right in the spray. At 0:09 we get close: a white tank, a green board, two black lances hanging under the frame. At 0:10 the dog finally walks off. The drone keeps the water going on the spot where it stood. Futurism, citing the video agency Spectee, reported the clip as a demo by a Chinese company that makes drones for washing solar panels. It was said to be filmed in Linyi, Shandong. At 0:13 the dog walks back in. By 0:15 it is standing under the jet again. teapaw.org/torquelog/status/21115…

WATCH 0:08. A DRONE ON A CABLE BACKS OUT OF AN APPLE TREE WITH AN APPLE ON THE TIP OF ITS ARM. NO LADDER, NO PICKER One row of an orchard and a low teal machine parked in it. Above it hang blue drones, each on its own black cable. From 0:02 one of them hovers right against the tree, nose pushed into the leaves. At 0:08 it pulls back with the apple. From 0:10 the camera walks along the machine: row after row of drones hovering over its deck. The drones say Tevel on the side. The cable is the trick. New Atlas reported that Tevel drones draw their power through the tether from the vehicle on the ground, so they can pick through the day and night, as long as its battery lasts. At 0:17 a man in a black t-shirt walks past the machine. His hands are empty. teapaw.org/torquelog/status/21115…

ONE SLIPPER LEFT ON THE FLOOR. A ROBOT VACUUM UNFOLDS AN ARM, PICKS IT UP AND PUTS IT BACK NEXT TO ITS PAIR A wooden floor, one blue slide in the middle of it and a round robot vacuum heading its way. At 0:01 a flap on top of the robot slides open. From 0:02 an arm unfolds out of the body, joint by joint, like a desk lamp. At 0:06 it turns to face the slide and rolls up close with the arm out. At 0:09 the claw closes on the strap. At 0:11 the slide is up in the air. At 0:12 it sets it down next to the other one by the wall and folds the arm back in. The uploader says this is a Roborock Saros Z70. Its arm lifts a maximum of 300 grams, and socks and shoes are exactly what it was built to pick up. Nobody had to bend down for this one. teapaw.org/torquelog/status/21115…

A WORKER DROPS A ROBOT INTO A CARGO HOLD FULL OF GRAIN. FOR THE NEXT 20 SECONDS IT SWIMS ACROSS THE PILE ON SPINNING SCREWS The man in the white hard hat and dust mask stays up on the rail. At 0:00 he holds the machine over the edge, and half a second later it is in the air. It lands, digs in and slides down the slope. By 0:05 it is a small dot far out on the pile, turning circles and leaving rings behind. At 0:11 we get close. Spiral blades on both sides throw the grain back like paddles. From 0:13 it works along the steel wall where the pile is highest, half buried and still pushing. Grain is not solid ground. Purdue University counted at least 21 grain entrapments in the US in 2025, and 28.6% of them were fatal. Nobody on this ship had to step onto it. teapaw.org/torquelog/status/21115…

NO HANDS UNDER THIS COW. A ROBOT ARM PUTS ON ALL FOUR MILKING CUPS IN ABOUT 30 SECONDS The camera sits low, right next to the hooves. At 0:00 the arm swings out from under the stall with the first cup. At 0:04 that cup is on. The arm goes back for the next one at 0:06, grabs it at 0:10, and by 0:14 two cups are hanging. Same trip again: the third goes on around 0:22, the fourth at 0:29. Each time the cup comes up from below, lines up under the teat and slides on. At 0:31 the arm folds away and leaves the cups to do their job. The uploader says this is a DeLaval V300, part of what DeLaval calls a voluntary milking system. At launch in 2018 the company said one unit could milk 3,500 kg a day, with a camera that finds teats from a metre away. Here it found all four without a single person in the shot. teapaw.org/torquelog/status/21115…

A HUMANOID STEPS INTO ITS OWN SHIPPING CASE, SITS DOWN IN THE FOAM AND LIES BACK. NOBODY TOUCHES IT FOR 20 SECONDS A flight case on wheels lies open on the floor of a big hall. The foam inside is cut to the outline of a body. The robot stands over it with its back to us, and one guy films it on his phone. At 0:03 it bends its knees and lowers itself into the case. By 0:08 it is sitting in the foam, arms out in front. At 0:10 it lies back and its head drops into the head-shaped hole. Then the legs. At 0:15 both go straight up in the air, and from 0:17 it folds them down into their slots, one at a time. At 0:21 a human hand finally reaches in to settle the last bits. Omdia estimates about 13,000 humanoid robots shipped worldwide in 2025. That is a lot of foam cut to shape. This one did most of its own packing. teapaw.org/torquelog/status/21115…

WATCH 0:12. A BLADE DROPS BETWEEN TWO BABY BEETS, THROWS UP THE DIRT, AND BOTH PLANTS ARE STILL STANDING Teal frame, four big tyres, no cab and nobody driving. It straddles the rows and creeps forward. At 0:05 the camera catches it side-on: a row of hoe units hanging under the frame. Then the camera gets down to the soil. From 0:09 each unit dips a thin blade into the row on a swinging arm, in and out between the plants. At 0:17 a big tyre rolls past a few inches from the beets. From 0:23 you look straight down on the tools: blue hoses, a box on every arm. This is a Farming GT from Farming Revolution, a German company that began as a nine-person robotics team inside Bosch. The maker says it picks out plants from 1 cm tall and moves all 1,500 kg on electric all-wheel drive. The beets in this clip are barely a hand high. teapaw.org/torquelog/status/21115…

A HUMANOID ROBOT IN AN OFFICE CHAIR JUST TICKED THE BOX THAT SAYS IT IS NOT A ROBOT. GREEN CHECK AT 0:02 A studio desk at dusk. Two big monitors, a keyboard, a mouse with a purple glow. The hand on the mouse is white plastic. At 0:01 the not-a-robot box is still empty. The fingers press down, and at 0:02 the spinner turns into a green tick. At 0:03 the camera swings over the keyboard. Nobody typed a thing. From 0:05 it pulls back to show who clicked: a full humanoid in a black office chair, propped on a yellow cushion. At 0:06 the other hand comes up in a thumbs-up. Its owner calls it Jarmil. Google rolled out this checkbox in December 2014. Its post at the time said AI could already read even the hardest distorted CAPTCHA text with 99.8% accuracy. So instead of making you read, the box looks at how you behave before, during and after the click. This time the hand on the mouse was plastic. teapaw.org/torquelog/status/21115…

A HUMANOID GOES FOR A WALK DOWN A SHOPPING STREET IN HANNOVER. IT MEETS A POLICE VAN, TWO KIDS AND ONE BLACK DOG Wide paving stones, big trees, people everywhere. Nobody walks next to it. At 0:01 it is already heading for a police van parked under the trees, and two officers stroll past in the background. At 0:07 it stops next to the van and waves with the whole arm. At 0:08 you can see an officer standing at the open door, watching it. At 0:10 the clip cuts to two kids walking hand in hand with a grown-up. The robot is up ahead, and they are going its way. From 0:12 it stands next to a man with a black dog on a leash. The dog stares and leans in. At 0:17 the owner bends down and keeps a hand on him, and at 0:18 the robot turns and walks straight at the camera. Hamelin is about 45 km from here. The town tells it like this: on June 26, 1284, 130 children followed a piper out of town and were lost. This one only got two, and they held on to a grown-up. teapaw.org/torquelog/status/21115…

A CAT IN A CARDBOARD BOX, ON TOP OF A ROBOT VACUUM. 29 SECONDS AND IT NEVER GETS OUT A living room, a wood floor, a white robot vacuum doing its rounds. On top of it rides an open cardboard box, and in the box sits a very fluffy white cat. At 0:00 a pomeranian trots up to the camera while a ginger cat watches from the sofa. By 0:04 the dog is nose to nose with the box. At 0:07 the passenger stretches out and lies down. The vacuum keeps turning. From 0:10 the dog circles the whole convoy, and at 0:13 the cat sits up and stares straight into the lens. At 0:17 the ginger cat strolls through like this is normal here. At 0:20 the ride is already in the next room, rolling past the chairs toward the window. Still in the box. Utrecht University researchers once gave 10 newly arrived shelter cats a box to hide in and left 9 without. The box cats were calmer by about day 3. The others only caught up by day 14. This one just added wheels. teapaw.org/torquelog/status/21115…

A 74,500$ ROBOT DOG DOING LAPS OF A RUG, DECEMBER 2020. THE TERMS IT SHIPPED WITH SAID: NOT FOR THE HOME Night, city lights in the window, a guy in an armchair holding a glass of wine. Spot stands in the middle of the rug, front lights glowing green. At 0:03 it turns side-on and walks the rug like it owns it. Watch 0:24. The back end drops, the front stays up, and it holds that pose for four seconds like a dog waiting for a treat. By 0:29 it is back on all four. At 0:31 the clip jumps to another room and you see who is driving: a man on his feet, tablet in both hands. By 0:45 Spot has walked around a column and parked next to a panel of black and white squares. Boston Dynamics put Spot on sale in June 2020. The terms said it IS NOT CERTIFIED SAFE FOR IN-HOME USE, and the company told IEEE Spectrum it did not want people using it at home for fun. Six months later, here it is on the rug. teapaw.org/torquelog/status/21115…

A 200 KG FLOOR SCRUBBER IN A BUSY TESCO AISLE. IT DRAWS ITS OWN PERSONAL SPACE ON THE FLOOR Trolleys everywhere. The machine is dark grey, about waist high, a hose looped down its side, and it just keeps rolling. Look at the floor around it. From 0:01 a thin blue arc of light sits a step or two out from the body, and it moves when the robot moves. At 0:09 a shopper with a full trolley cuts straight across in front of it. The robot holds its line. At 0:14 a man carrying kitchen roll walks through the gap. From 0:16 a blue trolley handle drifts into frame - the filmer is shopping too. At 0:18 the robot turns and heads off with its back to us. This is a LionsBot R5. The company lists it at 200 kg with a 50 L tank, good for 5,000 m2 on one charge, and pitches it as a machine that runs a walk-behind scrubbers route with nobody on the handle. By the end it is just another thing in the aisle. teapaw.org/torquelog/status/21115…

FIRST HOUR OF A SNOWSTORM. A MAIL CARRIER ON THE ROUTE STOPS TO FILM A DRIVEWAY THAT IS CLEARING ITSELF December 11, 2025. Snow still coming down, a quiet street, nobody outside. On the driveway a small tracked machine with two headlights crawls along, throwing a white plume off to the side. Behind it the drive is striped darker where it has already passed, and every lap lays down another stripe. At 0:08 it is heading almost straight at the camera, chute up, lights on. At 0:10 the camera pulls back - the whole house, bare trees, and the machine still working the bottom of the drive. At 0:14 a cloud of thrown snow drifts back across the garage. Nobody comes out to check on it. It looks like a Yarbo: yellow and black body, two antennas sticking up. Yarbo says its snow blower can start when the snow begins, and that clearing during the storm keeps the snow under its 12 inch intake. So it does not wait for morning. Neither does the mail. teapaw.org/torquelog/status/21115…

A CART ROLLS UP WITH A STACK OF DRYWALL. BY 0:13 THREE SHEETS ARE STANDING ON THE STUDS A bare floor, metal studs, concrete. One cart, two arms on a tall column: a frame of suction cups on one, a drill on the other. At 0:01 the suction frame peels the top sheet off the stack and swings it upright. By 0:03 it is pressed flat against the studs. The drill arm reaches in at 0:06. Second sheet goes up at 0:08, third at 0:12, each one set right next to the last. The stack on the cart hardly looks smaller. At 0:14 the clip cuts to a second machine. A red laser line runs across the board at 0:15, a circular saw swings in at 0:16, and from 0:18 a drill riding on the suction frame works the board. USG lists its standard 5/8 inch fire-rated board at 2.2 lb per square foot. One 4 by 12 sheet of it comes out around 105 lb, about 48 kg. Nobody on this floor is carrying one. teapaw.org/torquelog/status/21115…

A DELIVERY ROBOT MET ONE GUY WHO WOULD NOT STEP ASIDE. THE STANDOFF LASTED 18 SECONDS A wide sidewalk at dusk. At 0:00 it is far down the block, two round eyes glowing. By 0:03 it is right at his feet. He does not move. At 0:04 the camera drops to his shoes - black sneakers, neon green laces, planted on the concrete. From 0:05 the robot sits face to face with the phone, close enough to fill the frame. Its name is Zuri, it works for Serve Robotics, and for the next 15 seconds neither of them gives way. At 0:09 he checks his feet again, just to be sure. At 0:21 he backs off a few steps. Zuri waits. At 0:26 it turns, and by 0:29 it is rolling right past him. Serve says it has deployed more than 2,000 robots across the US. Its Q2 2026 report counts 792 of them out doing deliveries on an average day. At 0:32 the tail lights go red. Back to work. teapaw.org/torquelog/status/21115…