This robot just smashed through a wall to deliver the Olympic torch
The Olympic torch relay ceremony just had its most heavy metal moment in its more than 80-year history.
On day 41 of the torch relay, which begins in the original site of the ancient Olympics in Olympia, HUBO the humanoid robot walked briefly with the Olympic flame, for some reason. It then drilled a hole in a wall, smashed through it, and delivered the torch to its next carrier. In a nice human touch, HUBO got to pass the torch to his creator, professor Oh Jun-Ho, at the robot's place of birth, the Korean Advanced Institute of Science Technology.
HUBO probably never thought (if such a thought was possible) that the Olympic torch would end up in its robotic hands. After all, the humanoid robot was designed for responses to emergency and disaster situations, not torch-carrying. But now, HUBO the humanoid robot joins noted Terminator Arnold Schwarzenegger as the only other robot to have carried an Olympic torch.
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Watch HUBO carry the Olympic flame below and try and not to get too freaked out by the other and much larger human-controlled robot that appears at 1:37 of the video. Kelly O'Meara Morales
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Kelly O'Meara Morales is a staff writer at The Week. He graduated from Sarah Lawrence College and studied Middle Eastern history and nonfiction writing amongst other esoteric subjects. When not compulsively checking Twitter, he writes and records music, subsists on tacos, and watches basketball.
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