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Figure has decommissioned its F.02 humanoid robot fleet, closing out a hardware generation that supported the company’s first BMW deployment, the birth of Helix, its first household chore demonstrations, and its first logistics deployment.
Instead of manually dismantling the robots or placing the full fleet in storage, Figure shipped them to a foundry in Imatra, Finland, and melted them in a 75-ton electric arc furnace.
Figure says Arnold Schwarzenegger helped inspire the plan after telling the company to “melt them,” and the company is turning the resulting metal bars into a limited series of commemorative artifacts.
Why Figure Retired F.02
The move is tied to Figure’s next hardware cycle.
“We love Figure 02. It is an incredible robot,” the company wrote. “F.02 marked many firsts for the company: our first deployment at BMW, the birth of Helix, our first robot doing household chores, and our first logistics deployment. As our F.03 fleet grows, maintaining the F.02 fleet no longer makes sense.”
The retirement also reflects a shared problem for companies building proprietary robotics hardware: old systems are not simple to scrap. Figure said the F.02 robots contained custom-built actuators and other intellectual property, making disposal more complicated than simply sending the machines to a standard recycling facility.
“Decommissioning a fleet of robots full of custom-built actuators and other intellectual property is no easy task,” the company wrote. “We needed to dispose of the robots in a way that protected our proprietary hardware. Disassembling each robot would take our technical staff so much time that it would delay the launch of F.04.”
How Figure Trained Robots to Jump Into Molten Steel
The company first contacted foundries in the U.S. and Mexico, but none would allow humanoid robots with lithium-ion batteries to jump into expensive industrial equipment. Figure said it even asked former MythBusters staff to help find a willing site before landing on the foundry in Imatra.
Training began at Figure’s campus in San Jose, where the company set up large airbags and trained robots to jump from the second floor of one of its buildings. The team used stunt-artist motion as a reference and trained a new AI model in simulation so the robots could jump accurately into a bucket of molten steel at a foundry they had never visited.
At the site in Finland, three graphite electrodes powered a 75-ton electric arc furnace used to melt solid steel scrap. The team had a 24-hour operating window and six melts to complete the process. Each melt had a 20-minute window before the molten steel cooled enough to form a hard crust.
Figure said the robots ran their AI policies “seamlessly” despite extreme heat and electromagnetic fields, even as cameras and other electronics failed in the environment. The company also addressed likely skepticism around the footage, writing: “In an age of AI-generated footage, it’s worth being clear: we really trained robots to jump autonomously, shipped them to Finland, and had them leap into a vat of molten steel.”
From Humanoid Fleet to Limited Artifacts
After the melt, Figure sent the metal bars back to the U.S. to be machined into a limited series of artifacts commemorating the F.02 generation.
Most of the F.02 fleet is now gone, according to Figure; only a few units remaining in storage at headquarters. Now, with their company secrets protected, and one of the coolest-ever robotics marketing stunts complete, the team can focus fully on F.03 and F.04.
Let’s just hope the footage isn’t used to one day help ignite a robot uprising!
