Boardwalk Robotics

Boardwalk Robotics was a small Pensacola, Florida company founded in 2017 alongside the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition (IHMC), the lab that took second place at the 2015 DARPA Robotics Challenge with an Atlas. IHMC lists Boardwalk, together with Morfey and H4 Labs, as a collaborator on its Nadia research humanoid, and the two organisations shared staff and know-how. Michael Morin, previously at Barrett Technology and Vicarious Surgical, was CEO.

Its own product, Alex, was revealed on 22 August 2024: a legless upper-body humanoid with 19 degrees of freedom, a 10 kg payload and actuators designed in house, meant to be bolted to a stand or a mobile base for manufacturing, logistics and maintenance. At launch it was offered to researchers and was in early pilots in aviation, food processing and logistics; legs were described as on the road map with IHMC's help. Funding was never disclosed beyond federal research awards.

The company did not stay independent for long. Foundation Robotics Labs of San Francisco bought Boardwalk in late 2024 for an undisclosed price, moved the team to California and renamed Alex as Phantom, the robot Foundation now pitches to factories and the US military. Boardwalk therefore no longer exists as a standalone humanoid maker, and its history continues under the Foundation record.