![](https://www.popsci.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/18/622L3BCQQUZFUXY5DSO4PI7IAI.jpg?quality=85&w=800)
![](https://www.popsci.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/18/622L3BCQQUZFUXY5DSO4PI7IAI.jpg?quality=85&w=800)
Will robots ever really understand the human condition? Is it possible, for example, for a machine to know both terrible purpose and utter futility at the same time? As an answer to that question, I present to you an Arduino-powered, knife-wielding tentacle robot in a box:
Watch that flailing! Feel for the machine as every last movement fails to mean anything. Laugh as the tiny knife, part of a Swiss Army utility card, slices through the empty air. Tremble before the knowledge that a human made this rubbery nothing for fun, and then relax in the knowledge that the machine cannot feel, it is just our feelings projected upon it that make us sad.
The device, properly named “’Littlebits’ ‘Arduino’ knife-wielding tentacle,” comes to us from YouTube user Outa Spaceman. Arduino is an open-source electronics platform, which is paired here with a Littlebits proto-module and servo to create a mechanical arm that flails. Outa Spaceman says he built it in his spare time since being let go from his job for medical reasons. Why the knife bot? From the video description: “I build to amuse those who may be bored. Just right now I think the world needs a laugh.”
Agreed. Watch the stabby little monster below:
![](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/pQ2dI_B_Ycg/hqdefault.jpg)