Oregon State University students return from Pentagon robot demonstration

You may remember Digit, the humanoid robot with two legs, two arms, a torso, and a head that Oregon State University robotics students helped create over the past decade with the help of Agility Robotics.

The team's eventual goal is to train and program Digit to do any physical labor that a human can do.

READ MORE | Oregon State University's robot headed to the Pentagon

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency - a research and development agency of the U.S. Department of Defense - invited Fern and two Ph.D. robotics students to the Pentagon on Oct. 5 for 'DARPO Demo Day.' Here, the team got to demonstrate Digit's capabilities.

Alan Fern, executive director of OSU's College of Engineering, says the goal of the trip was to show the future of robotics, enabled by developing the real-world technology that they are working on.

"It was a great opportunity to just talk to them about how they see robots as being part of the military operations," Fern explains. "Being able to dramatically accelerate the ability to move things around is a game changer in itself for the military and society in general."

Fern says their goal is to eventually train Digit to load and unload both a convoy of military trucks and delivery trucks at a faster pace.

Fern says the team is now having follow-up conversations with several people at the Pentagon.

The team is also working on their next DARPA grant.

"I think people should just be excited about these future possibilities," Fern says. "I know there's a lot of there's a lot of other discussions that can try to scare people about future possibilities. But I think there's much more to be said about the excitement and the great things that can come about from new technology than then the scaremongering that you often will hear."

Agility Robotics is now manufacturing Digit at a warehouse in Salem, and Amazon has purchased a number of the robots to complete warehouse tasks. We reached out to Amazon but they were unavailable for comment.

But the OSU team says they're training Digit to achieve more than simple warehouse tasks.