Stanford students’ robot dog does backflips for (relatively) cheap
It's tiny, but it's also more powerful than you might think. As it's both very light and dense, it can jump as high as 3.5 feet in the air.
This isn't the most sophisticated robot. It requires manual control, and it's not about to hold the door for you. The relatively affordable off-the-shelf parts make it far more accessible than other projects, though. And more importantly, it's open source. Anyone with enough engineering know-how could expand on what Doggo offers, whether they want to make a courier robot or a social companion. At the least, this shows that you don't need a well-funded tech company or a huge research grant to produce an athletic robot of your own.
Gloss