Robots people the landscape of our sci-fi fantasies. Egg-shaped and beeping, golden humanoids with bad joints, and fully functioning (if pasty looking) androids.

In an off-campus building less than a mile away from UNLV, HUBO — a robot named Metal Rebel — stands still waiting for commands.

Seeking to benefit from the anticipated, widespread commercial use of the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) nationwide, Nevadans have been working diligently to cultivate an industry around this type of aircraft.

The voice on the black and white film is hear on screen.

UNLV was among 23 of the world’s best robotics teams competing in the 2015 U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Challenge Finals, an elite competition of robots and their human supervisors, on June 5-6 at the Fairplex in Pomona, California.

A UNLV Rebel placed eighth at an international engineering competition this past weekend. Did we mention that Rebel doesn’t have a brain?

UNLV made a strong showing at the world’s most advanced robotics competition over the weekend.

From the very beginning of the DARPA Robotics Challenge (DRC) Finals, it was obvious that driving was going to be a problem for the robot contestants. The very first robots to take the field this past Friday at the Fairplex in Pomona, California showed up without their modified Polaris utility vehicles. These machines were hoofing it, using their own legs to gradually make their way down a dirt strip meant to simulate part of a disaster zone too perilous for humans. It turned out to be pretty perilous for robots, too. By not even getting into the cars, these teams were already conceding defeat in the two-day Pentagon-funded competition.