Google-owned Atlas robot re-enacts scene from The Karate Kid

Atlas has four hydraulically-actuated limbs with a pair of stereo cameras and a laser rangefinder for 'eyes'

If you’d ever doubted that a robot can kick your ass, then this video of Boston Dynamics’s 6ft 2in, 150kg Atlas re-enacting a scene from The Karate Kid should change your mind.

The bipedal bot is currently in training for the Darpa Robotics Challenge (DRC), a prize competition funded by the US military to build semi-autonomous robots for disaster response.

Robots in the competition have to undertake simple challenges such as clearing rubble, driving jeeps, and attaching fire hoses. (Whether or not they’ll ever to face an opponent prepared to sweep the leg we’re not sure.)

Atlas is only one of half a dozen or so robots currently being developed by Boston Dynamics, a robotics company that found internet fame a couple of years ago for videos of its robotic pack mules and that was purchased by Google in December 2013.

See below for the video of the full pose (though you should probably turn your speakers down first):

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