Students turned Unitree Go 2 into Thunder Paws robodog
Students at Collins College at St. John’s University in the USA created an unusual robot named Thunder Paws, which became a real star of the campus. The project is based on the Unitree Go 2 quadruped, which the students completely transformed. Turning a standard robot into an interactive companion capable of performing tricks like a real dog.
The main feature of Thunder Paws is that it doesn’t just move around, but can perform a whole set of “dog” tricks. Sit on command, run, and even roll over on its back. All this became possible thanks to deep integration of artificial intelligence and complete reprogramming of the device by students.
The robodog is controlled through a special smartphone app or with a gamepad, making interaction with it intuitively understandable. Additionally, the developers equipped Thunder Paws with a special companion mode, allowing the robot to accompany a person and react to their actions.
Thunder Paws’ debut took place at the ceremonial send-off of the university’s Red Storm basketball team to the championship. The robot demonstrated its capabilities to the public, running up to people, following them, and performing various tricks to audience applause. The project went beyond ordinary laboratory work and became a real showcase of students’ engineering mastery.
It’s cool that students took the commercially available Unitree Go 2 robotic platform and significantly expanded its functionality, adding companion mode, the ability to perform tricks, and intuitive control through an app. And the result was such an interesting social robot.
