SOMERSAULTING ROBOT

The year saw all sorts of cool new robots, from Peeqo, a bot that communicates using GIFs, to the adorable companion robot Kuri. But the most impressive bot of 2017 was an improved version of Atlas, a humanoid robot first developed by Boston Dynamics in 2013. In November, the company released a dramatic video showing Atlas performing a series of increasingly difficult box jumps, ending with an impressive finale: a perfectly executed backflip.

But don’t worry: Atlas isn’t designed to compete against humans in the gym, but to carry out search and rescue missions and perform tasks deemed too dangerous for humans.