Uh… And the Robots Inherit the Earth
March 17th, 2008
I am absolutely impressed by this video of a robot named BigDog:
And, a little frightened. The mobility of this robot is simply beyond amazing. I would fall more readily than the machine. The only thing that could make it any better are electric motors, but I guess we’ll have to wait for the battery technology to catch up to the robots for that to happen.
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Very impressive. Although, the legs are a little freaky. The way that they’re articulated makes them look rather organic.
[…] Little Kitten – Pop Siren! Jump to Comments I’m a regular reader of Bird Brain (the blog of Dr Kirsten ‘Kiki’ Sanford – she likes to post cool vids too – robots robots robots!). […]
Hi Kiki. Bigdog is pretty well known – see http://reddit.com/info/6cg2y/comments and also click on the title of the page to see the cute robot they are comparing to Bigdog. I agree with John that it looks freaky because the articulation of the legs looks like two people are facing each other inside the robot. — Alan
You were mentioning the bit about it being so animal like that someone commented that they felt bad when it was kicked, but to me the freakier part is when it’s on the ice and they replay it in slow motion. My mirror neurons just keep thinking OH MY KNEES!!
Fits in well with the discussion on TWIM about how the Army is looking towards gamers for the future of their soldiers. Also, I can only imagine if my golden retriever was introduced to “bigdog.” My poor dog would FREAK OUT!
I’m torn between being really impressed and really scared. It’s like a buzzing man-made alien monster from hell.
Can you imagine how painful (from a cost and time perspective) it would be if it lost control and fell? With all that weight on it, there could be some serious component damage… I guess they do need it to be (and probably already is) rather durable.