Most of you look to me as a leading authority on robots, whether for my fair and balanced coverage of human-robot relations, my obvious grasp of their technological underpinnings or the fact that I have seen the Terminator movies many, many times. But even I sometimes make errors. For instance, when I first saw CHIMP—that's Carnegie Mellon's robot that will compete in the DARPA Robotics Challenge Finals—I first thought that it had belt sanders for forearms.

Enter a caption (optional)

However, those aren't belt sanders; they're actual treads. In the following video, you'll see the robot appearing to kneel in a deceiving display of obeisance, but what it's actually doing is lowing its forearm treads to the floor:

If it's not clear why the robot is doing that, it's performing that exercise where it rolls its limbs apart and then back together in order to strengthen its abs. (It can also drive around on the treads.)

Enter a caption (optional)

Lack of belt sanders aside, it can use power tools. Here we see it using a DeWalt drill to cut a hole into a wall:

In this video it vandalizes a construction site, carelessly tossing 2x4s out of its way:

Here we see it opening a series of doors and leaving them all ajar, to allow fellow robots to invade its master's residence:

Lastly, this robot even has its own sexy trailer that kind of looks like a Ferrari commercial:

CHIMP, by the way, stands for CMU Highly Intelligent Mobile Platform Robot. It will be fielded at the DARPA event by Carnegie Mellon's Tartan Rescue Team.