What do you do when your humanoid robots have become outdated?Apparently, you melt them.US robotics company Figure has given its retired F.02 humanoid robots an almost unbelievable farewell, sending the machines jumping into a furnace filled with molten steel in Finland. And because the whole thing looked suspiciously like the ending of Terminator 2, there was one person who had to be involved: Arnold Schwarzenegger.Yes, the man who played the Terminator.Figure has now released footage of the dramatic decommissioning, showing its humanoid robots being lowered into a 75-ton electric arc furnace and, in some cases, jumping into the molten metal themselves.One robot even performs a somersault before disappearing into the furnace.Another gives a thumbs-up as it heads towards the molten steel.If you’ve seen Terminator 2: Judgment Day, the reference is hard to miss.And it wasn’t accidental.
Arnold Schwarzenegger actually suggested melting them
The bizarre farewell started when Figure CEO Brett Adcock asked online for ideas about what to do with the company’s older F.02 robots.One response came from Schwarzenegger himself.His suggestion? Melt them.Figure took the idea seriously. The company contacted the actor, and he agreed to get involved in the project. The resulting video deliberately recreates some of the most recognisable moments from the final scene of Terminator 2, where Schwarzenegger’s T-800 lowers himself into molten metal.In Figure’s version, the actor appears in protective gear at the Finnish foundry as the F.02 robots meet their rather dramatic end.So what looks like a scene straight out of a science-fiction film was actually the company’s real decommissioning process. Figure says the robots were genuinely melted down and that the footage wasn’t AI-generated.
Why were the robots melted?
There was more to it than making a viral video.The F.02 was an important part of Figure’s early development. It was the company’s first robot deployed at BMW and was also used in household and logistics demonstrations.But Figure is now moving towards its newer F.03 generation and working on F.04.Keeping the older fleet running no longer made sense, according to the company. Taking every robot apart manually would also have required engineers to spend time dismantling machines instead of working on the next generation.There was another concern: the robots contained custom-built components and proprietary technology.Simply throwing them away or leaving them intact wasn’t ideal.Melting them meant the hardware could be destroyed while the metal itself could still be recovered.
The robots had to learn how to jump into the furnace
This might be the strangest part of the entire story.The robots didn’t simply get carried into the furnace.Figure says it trained the F.02 machines to jump into the molten steel autonomously.Before travelling to Finland, engineers practised the movement at the company’s San Jose headquarters. The robots were trained using large airbags, with stunt performers providing movement references. The team first worked on the jumps in simulation before training the robots to perform them physically.And then came the real test.The robots had to perform the jumps at a foundry they had never visited before.
Finding a foundry willing to do it wasn’t easy
Figure reportedly approached foundries in the US and Mexico, but they declined to take part.The problem was the robots’ lithium-ion batteries.The batteries had to remain in the machines for the robots to move and jump under their own power, making the operation far more complicated than simply putting a pile of old machinery into a furnace.Eventually, a foundry in Imatra, Finland, agreed.The facility uses a 75-ton electric arc furnace powered by three huge graphite electrodes. Figure’s team had just 24 hours and six melting cycles to complete the operation, with only about 20 minutes available during each cycle before the molten steel began forming a hard crust.
From humanoid robots to souvenirs
Most of the F.02 fleet has now been melted down.A few units remain in storage at Figure’s headquarters, but the company’s old robot generation has largely reached the end of its run.The story doesn’t quite end in the furnace, though.Figure says the metal recovered from the melted robots was sent back to the US, where it is being turned into a limited series of commemorative objects.So, in a strange twist, the robots haven’t completely disappeared.They’ve just been given a very different second life.And perhaps that’s what makes this farewell so oddly fitting.The F.02 robots helped Figure enter the world of humanoid robotics. They worked at BMW, helped develop the company’s systems and became part of its early experiments in getting robots to work in the real world.Now, as a newer generation takes over, the company has sent them off in the most Terminator-like way possible.Molten steel. A thumbs-up. A somersault.And Arnold Schwarzenegger standing nearby.Somewhere, the T-800 would probably approve.
