Check Out The Record Breaking Robot

How many robot-centric records does the Guinness Book hold, I wonder. It’s certainly a good incentive for inventors. Sometimes, scientific advancement isn’t enough of a reason. That’s fair. But you know what really lights a fire under you? A shiny trophy.

UK-based robotics engineer Matt Denton has created “Mantis,” a titanic 2.8m x 5m hexapod robot, and the new record holder for World’s Largest Rideable Hexapod (one more record I did not know existed). It barely breaks a mile per hour as it moves, but its legs are fully articulated and can move in all sorts of patterns. Denton was inspired in his youth by the AT-AT walker robots in The Empire Strikes Back, and now helps create all sorts of robotic wonders for major motion pictures. You’ve seen his work if you saw Star Wars Episode VII; he helped designed the lovable BB-8.

Denton has been tinkering with hexapod robots for almost a decade, each one gradually bigger than the one before. Mantis isn’t even his final destination; Denton is already planning a new hexapod, even bigger than Mantis and with underwater capabilities.