The jumping of this robot somewhat goes into the roots of how it works... for a long time the 'traditional' way we envisioned robot movement was along the lines of Honda's ASIMO style, very calculated, slow, just like the 80's dance.
hehe this is a good one... yes... face plant for the investors!
<object height="355" width="425">
<embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ASoCJTYgYB0&hl=en" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" height="355" width="425"></object>
Then some got the idea, hey that's now how we move until we're 80, nor is that how animals move. And a lot of projects began to watch the locomotion of various animals, snakes, pumas, kangaroos, etc. Once we got a good understand of how they don't fall over and why, some came up with 'jumping bots.' MIT Legs lab did some great robots that looked like plungers running around. Basically these robots that don't stop, they always move. "Big Dog" seems to be somewhat of a mix, but defiantly has its roots in the jumping category.
While big dog looks sad on the ice, it's truly amazing. I'm not even that skilled on ice, falling 3 times leg up in the air style this winter alone!
but sigh... It's only a matter of time before big dog is scrambling to my car with an attached taser accessory and ticket printer.