Robot relays Pyeongchang Winter Olympics torch

Next year’s Winter Olympics has generated a host of controversies with Russian players banned over doping and other issues but the torch relay by a robot was a thing to watch.

On Monday, the Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology’s robot, named Hubo, carried the Pyeongchang 2018 Olympics torch for the stretch of the relay in Daejon, South Korea.

Hubo is 1.2 meters tall, has a maximum stride of 65 paces per minute.

Even more impressively, Hubo used a tool mounted on one of its arms to cut through a wall and pass the torch through, all without accidentally setting anything on fire.

According to Olympics Games history, it is not the first robot to carry the torch – or even the first one in the 2018 relay. Earlier this year, an “undersea robotic craft helped carry the flame” for a separate stretch of the months-long relay, which involves some 7,500 volunteers.

Once the competition in Pyeongchang does kick off in February 2018, approximately 85 robots will be “deployed as volunteers.”