If you've been cursing the sticky tape and searching fruitlessly for the scissors, maybe a robot is the solution. The team behind the Humanoid HMND 01 Alpha Bipedal certainly thinks so. The company has released a tongue in cheek video for the holidays that is a tribute to one of the scenes from the classic film “Love Actually.”

The Humanoid Alpha was in the headlines recently after the designers say it learned to walk in just 48 hours. The project uses Nvidia's Isaac Sim and Isaac Lab, and the developers gave the robot the equivalent of 19 months of conventional locomotion training into just two days of virtual reinforcement learning. 

 Alpha can walk in straight lines or follow curved paths. It can also run, hop, and step to the side. It can manipulate objects, rebalance itself if it falls or is pushed, and can interact with humans or other robots. It has modular hands that can be swapped between simple grippers or five fingered models for tasks requiring dexterity. Alpha alos comes with cameras, depth sensors, and microphones. 

The present wrapping video shows the robot taking on the task of wrapping a gift for an impatient shopper. In the original scene in Love Actually, Rowan Atkinson's character takes a long time to wrap a necklace being purchased by the character played by Alan Rickman, who wants a quick job to avoid detection by his wife. 

In the Humanoid video, the purchaser wants a toy robot wrapped. As in the film, Alpha asks if the customer wants gift-wrapping, and while the customer asks for something "simple," the robot goes through multiple steps, starting with a clear acrylic box, then adding decorative stars, pine cones, and candy canes. The increasingly impatient customer asks the robot to hurry, to which Alpha calmly says "I'll be done in a second," while continuing to add ornaments.

When the woman's husband arrives and asks why it's taking so long, Alpha tells them "I've only had hands for a week."

After all the delays, Alpha eventually replaces the over-the-top parcel with a much simpler pre-wrapped red package.

Maybe a robot isn't the answer to your present wrapping problems after all. 

More Information

Present Wrapping On YouTube

Humanoid Website

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