BallBot Rolls Over Competition, Toes

PITTSBURGH (August 9, 2006) - Carnegie Mellon Researchers Develop New Type of Mobile Robot That Balances and Moves on a Ball Instead of Legs or Wheels

See Press Release Here

The goal of the project is the creation of bots that can "maneuver in cluttered, peopled environments; and which readily yield when pushed around." This is a worthy goal when it comes to getting a robot to navigate a crowd of people who don't like 45KG robots stepping on their toes.

My only word of warning is on the "readily yield when pushed around" part. Every bot has its limits. This one seems to like being pushed, but soon enough the schematics may change to this: