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Post by Dragon Zachski on Jun 5, 2011 17:27:10 GMT -5
They've had stuff like this around for years now. Color me unimpressed. It's nothing more than a "loo what I can do!!!" toy, not something that has useful real world applications. Right now, that's what it is. At the same time, it's incredibly important. The key, however, is what can be added to it to give it real world applications. A foundation by itself is not a building, after all. It's what you put on top of it.
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Post by MaybeNever on Jun 5, 2011 19:57:57 GMT -5
They've had stuff like this around for years now. Color me unimpressed. It's nothing more than a "loo what I can do!!!" toy, not something that has useful real world applications. "Pshaw, those Wright brothers have created an 'aero-plane' that can fly but a handlebar-moustacheful of feet! I am unimpressed! Let them contrapt rather a device of some utility! Now that would be quite bully!" I love old-timey talk.
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Post by Napoleon the Clown on Jun 5, 2011 23:13:43 GMT -5
I'm just gonna used the long-loved engineering term KISS.
The thing is slow as hell and complicated as fuck with too little room for the kind of redundancy you'd need for anything other than a very expensive toy.
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Post by Dragon Zachski on Jun 6, 2011 3:06:59 GMT -5
I'm just gonna used the long-loved engineering term KISS. The thing is slow as hell and complicated as fuck with too little room for the kind of redundancy you'd need for anything other than a very expensive toy. Right now it's slow, that may change when they figure out how to make it gallop. The fact that it can counterbalance automatically is a boon so that if, say, military situation, it can't just be kicked over and rendered useless. Redundancy... they'll probably figure out how to do that.
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Post by Distind on Jun 7, 2011 11:04:04 GMT -5
They've had stuff like this around for years now. Color me unimpressed. It's nothing more than a "loo what I can do!!!" toy, not something that has useful real world applications. I'm not sure how related they are as there are definite differences, but I've seen a walking bit of construction equipment which is used for minimal ecological disruption. I thought it was pretty damn impressive leaving circular dents in the ground cover rather than a big ass tread trail like I'm used to seeing. Not the most interesting use, but it's still something.
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Post by Napoleon the Clown on Jun 7, 2011 16:34:27 GMT -5
I think I'm familiar with that one, and it's far less complex than this miniature mecha.
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Post by Radiation on Jun 7, 2011 19:54:33 GMT -5
That is fucking awesome, I would like to have one but then I'd be afraid that it would kill me.
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Post by tygerarmy on Jun 10, 2011 16:39:11 GMT -5
I was was thinking it could traverse Martian or other non-Earth places, just give it a camera, solar battery, collection tools, etc and off you go
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Post by Napoleon the Clown on Jun 10, 2011 17:55:48 GMT -5
I was was thinking it could traverse Martian or other non-Earth places, just give it a camera, solar battery, collection tools, etc and off you go Opportunity is doing that as we speak, and has been since December 2003. Walkers are, frankly, a terrible design. Way too complex a design for anything beyond a shambling packhorse. And it's a bit slow for that, too. Each of those legs represents 4 or so joints that would render it immobile should even one fail. The technology it uses to balance could fail, causing it to no longer have a sense of balance or even become "dizzy" and fall down completely. It has less carrying capacity than a wheeled or tracked vehicle of similar mass. The one and only advantage it has is it can concur a few obstacles are conventional mode of vehicular locomotion cannot. Frankly, it's too damn complex to be practical without being able to have support within minutes of arriving. Legs are fragile.
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