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Disney to Create Walking Animatronic Dinosaur
nakhla writes "I came across this article discussing Disney's plans to create an animatronic dinosaur that can roam free through it's Disney's California Adventure park. Disney's Imagineering unit has been working on the technology for several years now. While short on technical details, the article does mention that it will be able to interact with guests in numerous ways. Hopefully it won't go berzerk like the animatronic characters in that old Simpsons episode!" No, hopefully it will go berzerk!
We all know what happens when you try to build free-range animatronic robots. Regardless of their safeguards, they go nuts and kill people. It's all documented in this film. Which, incidentally, is what the Simpsons episode is a parody of.
There is no sig, there is only Zuul.
(I haven't been to a Disney location, but Hawaii made me quite happy to be spending my money there...)
Disney, however, does need to find a new mascot before they lose the Mickey copyright... although perhaps they can just keep playing with minor variations of trademarks to protect their non-film products...
When I was a young child on vacation with my family in Disney, we met up with some employees of the park who were friends of my uncles.
He was telling us some of the horror stories they have had with malfunctioning animatronics. The one that always stuck in my memory was when they were testing the Hall of Presidents. A prop table had been moved in front of President Lincoln and forgotten about. The routine began, Lincoln began talking, lifted up his arms to gesture and lifted the prop, he then lowered his hands to stand up from his chair and in the process dropped and smashed the table.
I was also fortunate enough to be in Universal Studios Florida on opening day, there was a terrible storm predicted but the clouds were holding. After waiting for 2 hours past the opening time, they opened the park. They informed us that a few rides might not be working, so for every ticket purchased, we would be recieving an additional ticket to be used at a later date. We went into the park, and here is what I remember.
Jetsons Wild Ride - went fine.
Jaws - Broke down while we were in line, people were stuck in the boats.
Godzilla, broke down just after we got off.
The best by far was ET! After waiting in a huge line, we get our cards with our names imprinted on the Mag stripe so ET can say our names, then we go to another line. This line was themed to look like the forest that ET was chased through. There was an animatronic of an ET elder, who came up through the forest floor, after some smoke, He kept malfunctioning and jumping up and down in clouds of smoke, speaking the whole while. A red light was supposed to run through the bushes to look like it was ET being chased, this too had problems as it was blinking and stopping. We get all the way up in the line, just about to hand them our cards when the power goes out completely and the place goes pitch black. About 30 Seconds later, the emergency lights come on and they guide us out with flashlights. On the way out they walked us through a part of the ride where I looked up, and some other unfortunate riders were stranded on the Bicycle platform suspended in mid air about 30 Ft. off the ground. We were given another free ticket each on our way out of the park, and I kept my ET magstrip card.
Theme Parks have a long history of covering up these types of things. Disney has a policy of not stopping CPR until a person has left the park grounds. Rumor has it that this was even done in Disneyland during the infamous Beheading on Space Mountain.
I was an employee of Six Flags Great Adventure for 3 years. Mentioning the Haunted House ( which caught fire and killed 3 ) is a terminable offense. While working there I did have the chance to witness a few other events. 1997 - From the High Dive, the diver lost his footing and fell into the water flailing and landing on his back. The ripples in the water caused multiple lacerations in his skin. I was on lunch break when the call came over the radio for First Aid. Like any other teen would have done, we all ran to see. I've also seen a (stupid) man get out of his bumper car and get hit, and seen two of the parks coasters (Red Track on "Batman and Robin: The Chiller and Great American Scream Machine) get stuck upside down.
I don't. Disney is making most of it's toys with slave labor in China at 30 cents an hour, from young teen aged female workers, for the most part, who work 12-14 hour days and get just 2 days off a month.
I think I will root for somebody else.
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When you come to a fork in the road, take it! --Yogi Berra--
I saw a prototype of this about a year ago on the discovery channel, or maybe it was their website. None the less, this thing was huge, dwarfing an SUV and it had fluid movements - similar to the impressive way the honda robot moves - except that it looked like it could use a SUV as a soccer ball. This thing looked incredibly scarey when it turned and walked towards the camera. Terminator 3 comes to mind when remembering it. Oh! I found it. HERE IS THE LINK and check out the video too!!!
This is featured in Wired (most current issue) as well as a rather interesting atricle about the folks @ Disney Imagineering.
--- You are unique, just like everyone else...
The big problem will be keeping it from stepping on somebody. They'll probably stick to a static tripod walk (3 feet on the ground at all times, and the CG kept over the ground contact triangle). They'll need redundant sensors in the feet capable of detecting foreign objects, like small children. Then they can just do a freeze (motion stops, but control system remains active) if there's something in the way.
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Troody, MIT's robot dinosaur, mentioned on Slashdot a year and a half ago. The head researcher, Peter Dilworth, said he was going to market talking, human-size versions to theme parks. Guess Disney went off on their own.