Capable of eye-catching gymnastic feats, lighting-quick machine learning and slick dancefloor bops, Boston Dynamics robots are truly a modern day technological marvel. And whether you think they mark the dawn of a new age of idle leisure for mankind, or represent a grim harbinger of humanity’s inevitable enslavement, you must admit they’re pretty cool from an engineering standpoint.

So today, we’re peering under the hood of our future metallic overlords and finding out just how Boston Dynamics build their robots.

The most striking feature of Boston Dynamics’ more famous latter-day creations – the adorable, dog-like Spot and the swole, Stormtrooper-esque humanoid Atlas – is that they walk on legs