This $5,900 humanoid robot can do cartwheels

Chinese robotics company Unitree has recently unveiled its R1 humanoid robot - a $5,900 machine that moves with startling agility. Standing 4 feet tall and weighing 55 pounds, the robot can perform cartwheels, hand-walking, punching combinations, and even downhill sprints - capabilities normally seen in robots costing many times more. 

The R1, marketed as "born for sport", is Unitree's cheapest and most nimble bot yet, packing 26 joints into its lightweight frame. A demo video shows it tumbling, standing up from a prone position, and recovering from stumbles, capabilities that put many pricier robots to shame. While full specs remain under wraps, the R1 clearly targets developers and consumers rather than just industrial users.  

The launch comes hot on the heels of Unitree's IPO filing, positioning it to become China's first publicly traded humanoid robotics firm. Priced at a fraction of competitors' models, like UBTech's $41,000 research bot, the R1 could accelerate the consumer robotics market. Even Tesla's much-hyped Optimus, still in development, may struggle to match this price-performance ratio at scale.  

With backflipping robots now within reach of hobbyists, the future just got a lot more interesting, and a little more acrobatic.