Amazing fine motor control: Robot cracks an egg one-handed and plays the piano

Humanoid robots are already fairly capable athletes, as recently shown by Unitree H1’s 10.2 m/s sprint and Toyota’s CUE7 basketball robot throwing a ball 25 meters. When it comes to fine motor control, however, human-like robotic hands are still often considered clumsy. French robotics startup Genesis AI wants to prove otherwise and has published several videos showing robotic hands performing complex fine motor tasks – including cracking an egg one-handed, slicing tomatoes, connecting cables and playing the piano at around 130 keystrokes per minute.

According to Genesis AI, the demonstrations were performed in real time and autonomously – without human remote control. The company is taking a full-stack approach, developing not only the GENE-26.5 AI model, but also the robotic hand, training gloves and its own simulations. The hand is modeled on human anatomy, has 20 degrees of freedom and features 20 directly integrated motors. This should make it easier to transfer human movement data to the robot.

Cracking eggs only works every other attempt

What stands out is that the robot still moves rather slowly – at only around 60 to 70% of normal human speed, according to Genesis. When playing the piano, however, the fingers move somewhat faster. Genesis says the robot can learn a new piece in about an hour, while the cooking demo required several hundred recorded motion sequences.

Many individual steps achieve success rates of 90 to 95%, Genesis told Business Insider. Particularly difficult tasks, such as cracking an egg one-handed or moving sliced tomatoes with a knife, only reach around 50 to 60% – roughly every other attempt. Overall, however, the demonstration is still one of the most impressive examples of fine motor control in robotics so far. Competition is likely to come mainly from Chinese robotics company Linkerbot, which specializes in humanoid robotic hands.

Reddit community divided

Reactions on Reddit are mixed. Many users are impressed by the fine motor skills of the robotic hands. Others doubt the authenticity of the scenes or see these advances as a sign of far-reaching automation – including concerns about jobs. After all, this is not the first example of a robot that could potentially compete with chefs. A robot chef is already in operation in Düsseldorf, Germany, where it sells fresh dishes starting at €3.50.