Meet the Cubli, a small six-inch cube robot that can flip, balance, and spin like a ballet dancer. Unlike most robots that are designed to travel using wheels, or try to mimic animal or human legs to move, the Cubli has three internal spinning wheels which provide a gyroscopic balancing force.

Created by scientists at Zurich's ETH Institute for Dynamic Systems and Control, the Cubli's internal wheels allow the cube to move when one of the wheels is quickly slowed or stopped, shifting the inertia from the wheel to the cube's frame.

Its inertial sensors are connected to an embedded processor and controller to keep the Cubli aware of its position and orientation, allowing it to stand up on one edge, then move up from there to a single corner and even spin.

The Cubli's unusual method of locomotion has its own practical uses, such as walking around on planets during space exploration, and as a way to develop self-assembling robots.

Watch the Cubli in action below: