An enormous team of engineers posted an unboxing video (below) this weekend when they received their Atlas Robot from the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency’s (DARPA). Nicknamed ‘Helios,’ the robot (initially built by Boston Dynamics) is MIT’s canvas for their entry in the trial round of DARPA’s Robotics Challenge, which is scheduled to begin this December in Florida.

The goal of the challenge is to develop futuristic robotics that can be deployed into disaster environments and perform tasks that would be deemed too dangerous for human contact (ie. nuclear reactor melt downs or earthquake epicenters). The MIT team has already made it through the preliminary round, in which they were tasked with designing software for a robot that was then tested in a virtual disaster simulator.

The team’s performance earned them the physical, humanoid robot which they now must customize with both hardware and software to complete disaster response operations in December’s trials. The Darth Vader-meets C3PO humanoid  stands 6 feet tall, weighs 330 lbs, is required to run 480V of power and have a 10 Gbps Fiber Optic Ethernet Connection. In addition to these ridiculously impressive specs, the Atlas has 28 hydraulic joints, a head mount that houses a laser/radar sensor package (so it can see), and must have crash protection built in.

Helios will go head to head with other robots from NASA, Cal Tech, and Virginia Tech among others. The top performing robots will receive additional funding and be eligible to compete in the DARPA Challenge finals in December of 2014. This final stage of the competition is a full-fledge disaster simulator and the winning team walks away with a $2 million purse.

Here’s the Atlas unboxing. And check out the Atlas robot in action below.

Atlas robot in action.