Slashdot Mirror
Dinosaur Robots Will Do My Bidding!
k-k-k-Ken writes: "Saw an interesting article in Forbes about Dinosaur Robots For Sale. While the bots are far from mass production, I can't help but wonder if this is another step in the direction of Jurassic Park meets the Terminator. Once the mobility has been worked out, the AI is the next logical step. Still, I can't help myself and would probably be one of the first to go get a 'Troody' ..." MIT also has a nifty article up about Dilworth and his robots, including links to the Leg Lab where the springy joints mentioned in the article are being developed.
Grimlock like Slashdot.
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
In general, mainstream A.I. has had disappointing results over the past 40 years, even though A.I. labs like MIT, SRI and Xerox have invented great general computining software (emacs, GNU, bitmap graphics, etc).
The driving force for A.I. in my opinion will come out of the entertainment computing industry. These including gaming/movie characters with realistic behaviors and robo-toys. Conventional computing labs are driven by making money in business or beating the military enemy. However, nothing is more stimulating than "play". The MIT Media Lab has worked a bit on this.
Could the walking tech they're using for this be used to build better robots for some of the Robot fighting competitions out there? This would really add some interesting designs. I'm getting a little tired of the wedge variations winning all the time. Also this would probably help to commoditize the tech so it could be incorporated into all kinds of cool toys. How about one big enough to ride? ;-) The article stated they are hoping to get this thing to run over rough terrain soon. Of course the sci-fi story possiblities are really cool too. Armed rangers riding around on their all terrain dinobots ;-). Kinda like mechwarrior just not so big ;-)
Arrogance is Confidence which lacks integrity. -- me
An amusement park where the giant mechanical dinosaurs go ape shit wild and send one made of liquid metal back in time to slay the mother of their would be destroyer Jon. But they are always thwarted by ancient technology that can't hurt it, but still manages to kill it after failing to kill it the first 300 times they tried it.......
.... oh, and they try to put it on display in los angelas and it goes nuts ala Godzilla for a while.
--Nuintari
slashdot : where an opinion can be wrong.
hey, the javascript wasn't working on the page for me, so here's the link. quicktime 3 required. http://www.forbes.com/static_html/troody.html john
Just as we start to build the first city-block trashing mechasaurs, you want to make them as smart as one of Cthulthu's grandchildren ? Isn't a big dumb dinosaur scarey enough for you ?
Never trust anything with tentacles and no backbone.
This is exactly the same thing as any robot made within the past few decades, except that it hops and looks like a dinosaur. Big whoop.
Got Rhinos?
Gil Pratt took over the Leg Lab, and focused more on actuator design. Raibert's machines worked, but needed hydraulic, electrical, and pneumatic umbilicals. Better machine design has produced more compact robots.
The idea of springy joints has been around for a while. It's common to model muscles as springs and dampers for which the spring constant, neutral point, and damping factor are adjustable. It's well-known that in mammal running, most of the energy of each stride is stored as spring energy in muscles. (As I recall, about 80% of the energy is recycled for the next stride, so this is a big win.) There's been work at Stanford on flexible manipulators, although that's more related to arms. McGill has a small, high-efficiency hopping machine.
Unless you use pneumatic actuators, off the shelf components aren't well-matched for this approach motion control. That doesn't mean it can't be done, but you spend a lot of time on component development. That's what the Leg Lab has been focusing on under Pratt, and that's why the little dinosaur model was tough to build.
Rod Brooks from MIT also tried a robotic startup, IS Robotics, which produced a $100K robotic insect. Didn't sell. It's really hard to sell mobile robots; I've known several people with failed startups.
I work on this sort of thing for games and animation.
I could see this type of thing really sprucing up the Dinosaur National Monument in Vernal, UT.
People shape laws. Not the other way around.
I want one to play my records with it's beak, one to fly out and change the channel on my TV, and one get all sassy and lock me out of my own stone-age house!
People shape laws. Not the other way around.
Me Grimlock say robot dinosaurs first step to Dinobots! Dinobots no need AI, Dinobots smash!
Right now, he is focused on building incredibly realistic museum pieces that would seem a lot like residents at a zoo. Aibo already chases an orange ball, and some robots can react to facial expressions. Dilworth expects that his dinobots will be even more lifelike.
And he's looking at charging 100,000 bucks to buy one or lease one for 2,000 a month. After growing up in an era of T-Rexes with foam skin that looks like someone picked at it and pulled chunks out of it at my local natural history museum, I'd be happy to see something more realistic, even if it's smaller. And I bet his robots wouldn't cost much more than those foam and girder monsters.
Steven
-- I have marked myself unwilling to moderate-- I don't have other accounts to artificially inflate the karma of
I can't wait until i see a honda asimo taking troody for a walk down 5th avenue...
Standard default rules!
Another step? You mean this is the latest in a long line of attempts to build robotic dinosaurs to extirminate humanity, and the trend has escaped my attention until now?
"Most insurance companies offer NO robot insurance protection." We see a man attacked in his garden by rampaging robot. Fake Scientist: "Robots are very big and very strong. They can hurt you. When they grip you in their super-strong steel claws, they just don't let go." Old person: "I don't even know why the scientists make the robots."
Hmm, $2000 to rent ...
... and you can just say it's for a science project if they have one of those "no tolerance" weapons searches.
...
I can see it now, a kid will rent one of these babies, maybe a T-rex model, and hack it to kill off his classmates.
They're killing machines, those dinosaur robots
By the time they figure it out
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
Why use AI?
Didn't the dinosaurs die because they were too stupid?
Check out paynestudios.com The artist there makes dinousar skeltons out of steel. Along with some wire cabling you can make em move, and even snap. I saw them at a trade show last year, and they are very cool. They are for sale too. Less than troody too.
Guess what I'm going to try and build with my lego tomorrow...
Once the mobility has been worked out, the AI is the next logical step
How about you come up with an AI as intelligent as a squid before you start having nightmares of rampaging intelligent dinosaur robots.
Dancin Santa
Just add some weaponry and you could kick some major butt on BattleBots or Robot Wars!
From the above poster's linked site:
"The technology behind Falling Bodies is now patented. This broad patent covers most spring/damper character simulation systems. If it falls, it has joints, it looks right, and it works right, it's probably covered by our patent."
Unbelievable. It seems to be nicely tuned, but it's a dead obvious concept.
Anyone who files a bogus (or bogusly broad) patent should be held financially responsible for the damage it causes by threatening innovators. Yeah, it would be a nightmare to work out, but at least it would give people some reason not to just reach for as much patent control as possible.
--
"Yay! more dinosaur robots that are totally incompatible with everything else including all other MIT dinosaur robots! Yay!"
/.ed already?
The video is horribly slow to download.
--
Yes, the nick is flamebait
I think, more important than entertainment, is that technology like this will someday make wheelchairs obsolete.
Right now a wheelchair that can climb stairs runs about 25 grand... But imagine attaching robotic 'legs' (maybe just supports?) to someone paralized from the waist down, allowing them the freedom they had before they were paralized!
RC
RC
Robotic dinosaurs will be nothing more than a more effective teaching tool than the dusty bones in today's museums. A.I. is as far off today as it was yesterday, and is nowhere near being a reality. If or when we have to deal with A.I., we'll have a lot more on our hands to deal with than worries about rampaging dinobots. Robotic lizards are fun, and somewhat irrelevant.