{"id":308407,"date":"2026-01-28T18:13:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T18:13:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/308407\/"},"modified":"2026-01-28T18:13:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T18:13:07","slug":"this-soft-humanoid-is-designed-to-be-physically-safe-and-socially-approachable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/308407\/","title":{"rendered":"This soft humanoid is designed to be \u2018physically safe and socially approachable\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

A startup called Fauna Robotics has revealed a new humanoid robot called Sprout<\/a> it\u2019s been developing over the past two years. Standing around 3.5-feet tall, Sprout\u2019s design, featuring a soft padded exterior, a wide head, and expressive mechanical eyebrows, was inspired by some of science fiction\u2019s friendlier robots like Baymax and Rosie Jetson, the startup\u2019s co-founder and CEO, Rob Cochran, told the Associated Press<\/a>.<\/p>\n

With articulated limbs and grippers for hands, Sprout looks ready to tackle dishes, tidy up around the home, or join a factory assembly line alongside humanoid robots like Tesla\u2019s Optimus<\/a> and Boston Dynamics\u2019 Atlas<\/a>. But that\u2019s not why Fauna Robotics developed the humanoid. It\u2019s initially being sold to other robot developers, researchers, universities, and tinkerers who may not have the resources to develop their own humanoid platform.<\/p>\n

Fauna Robotics says Sprout\u2019s \u201cmovement, perception, navigation, and expression all work out of the box,\u201d so that others can focus on developing unique applications for the humanoid instead of having to spend time teaching it to do basic things like walk. While it may be destined for labs and research facilities away from the public at first, Sprout was still developed to be approachable and function alongside humans. It\u2019s lightweight, quiet, and was designed with \u201cno pinch points or sharp edges\u201d for safety reasons. It\u2019s not folding laundry yet, but the potential is there.<\/p>\n

While buying a Sprout may be cheaper than engineering a humanoid scratch, it\u2019s still priced at $50,000, according to the Associated Press. That puts it well out of the reach of most consumers, but some of the startup\u2019s earliest customers include companies like Disney and Boston Dynamics. It\u2019s not known how much robots like Atlas cost, but it will certainly be a lot cheaper for Sprout to take damage from a bad fall than Boston Dynamics\u2019 most advanced humanoid<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A startup called Fauna Robotics has revealed a new humanoid robot called Sprout it\u2019s been developing over the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":308408,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[261],"tags":[291,289,290,18,282,19,17,15927,753,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-308407","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-gadgets","13":"tag-ie","14":"tag-ireland","15":"tag-robot","16":"tag-tech","17":"tag-technology"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115974085156516723","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=308407"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308407\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/308408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=308407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=308407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=308407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}