Step Aside
If you watch college football, you know that the cheerleaders for some universities do a push-up for every point their team scores.
But this football season, Virginia Tech has given that old college tradition a futuristic twist — by enlisting a robodog to do the push-ups instead of the school’s cheerleaders.
A Dog’s Life
Philadelphia based-robotics company Ghost Robotics built the robodog, which is carried into the end zone every time the Virginia Tech Hokies score during a game.
Then, a PhD student in the school’s engineering program uses a remote to instruct the bot to lift itself up and down in something kinda, sorta like a push-up.
Friendly Creature
The purpose of the robodog is to draw attention to Virginia Tech’s engineering program, according to a Washington Post story, and Kaveh Akbari Hamed, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at the school, is encouraged by the public’s response to the robot canine so far.
“When I see that people like it — it’s a friendly creature for society, and it is going to assist people, not replace anyone — it is a very nice moment,” he told the Washington Post. “If society likes these kind of things, let’s work harder and make it better and better.”
READ MORE: Virginia Tech’s terrifying touchdown robot wants to do push-ups, not take over the world [The Washington Post]
More on robodogs: Boston Dynamics CEO Wants Its Robodogs to Fight Each Other