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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!
Hopefully they will finally get around to re-animating uncle Walt.
Then let them tear Jeff Goldblum to pieces. Yeah, that'd be cool.
Need to make some Animatronic Japanese tourists to run in front of it screaming!
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.
That's the magic," Sklar said. "When people see, hear and touch this character, it will be a real groundbreaking experience."
The character doesn't talk, but can respond with movements. Some of its potential antics are eating popcorn, "stealing" a guest's hat and sneezing. [...]
Disney chose a dinosaur because children are so fascinated with them, Sklar said, plus "it's a large enough character to get their attention."
Some visitors will scream "THIEF!!" Others will scream "RUN FOR YOUR LIFE! IT'S GODZILLA!"
It is indeed a groundbreaking experience. Go Disney go! Scatter thine visitors... :-)
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What would be really sweet is if they could hook up some really enormous piledriver-like devices all over the park and synchronize them falling with the steps of the anamatron. That way it would have that hyper-realistic whole-earth-shuddering effect during each footfall.
My
Limekiller
Please don't moddd me down, Niiiice Laaadyy!
DJMD - The fourth man - Planetary
Rawr!
The Slashdot crowd spends most of their time bitching about the copyright escapades of the Disney corporation, but you cannot forget that they are a world leader in robotics applications. If you ever want to see some awesome electronics, watch the Travel Channel's behind the scenes shows some times; they show the maintenance side of the parks, and how much "small" stuff is going on (audio systems & minor mechanicals) that you don't always consciously notice.
Besides, in a battle of the (mega-)corporations, I'd root for Disney to beat Sony any time... Disney just has that knack for making their toys visually pleasing & fun to use. Plus, I've always wanted a pet dinosaur, and if we can't genetically engineer one ala Jurassic Park, might as well go for the next best substitute (and robots don't pee on your carpets)
Strom Thurmond to be fitted with prosthetic walking aids.
Moo
An as-yet unnamed dinosaur (Tyrannosaurus, of course - is there any other kind?) will begin roaming (rampaging) through a designated area ("Bloodbath Town") of either California Adventure or Disneyland this spring, said Marty Sklar, vice chairman of Imagineering. This will be the first test of untethered (unfettered) Audio-Animatronics and the next phase in Imagineering's quest to increase interaction (exterminate) with visitors.
Disney created Audio-Animatronic figures and has used them in attractions since 1963, beginning with birds in the Enchanted Tiki Room (and they all look like what they really are - stupid moving dolls). But this will be the first one that's not fixed to a spot (cause the engineers got sick of doing that boring shit). An unseen operator (HAHAHA!! You will NEVER catch ME!!!) will guide the dinosaur's movements, allowing it to respond (chase) to guests (and eat them).
"That's the magic," Sklar said. "When people see, hear and touch (and get fragged by) this character, it will be a real groundbreaking experience (not to mention a real blast for the guys who get to run it and stomp on all those drooling rugrats who infest the park)."
The character doesn't talk (hey, six-inch teeth - who needs to talk? Just smile!), but can respond with movements ("slam jaws together over lawyer's head"... oops, wrong movie). Some of its potential antics are eating popcorn (sorry, I meant "people"), "stealing" a guest's hat (and the head under it) and sneezing (gotta get the blood of its snout somehow, right?).
Imagineers have long dreamed about walking Animatronics, but it took technology a while to catch up with their creative minds (yeah, getting them to walk and chew at the same time is a bitch).
Especially when it roams around the park, bonking people over the head with blunt objects and yelling, "Not the Mama!"
Mod Karma -1: I sed bad wurds. If I cep my mouf shut, I wud be at riyses.
As cool as this could be, the entire thing sounds unfeasable from a legal standpoint. Just imagining the size, the potential power of the mechanics, and the chance for error, the possibility it gets cracked, and do on, I can't imagine this actually getting done.
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Besides, imagine the headlines of "Mechanical Dinosaur Falls On Top of Family of Three Due to Faulty Programming" . .
"The Sage treasures Unity and measures all things by it" - Lao Tzu
Wait until those model numbers reach T-100, then we'll need to call in Linda Hamilton to clean up the mess.
Rich
The world's most expensive Turok level!!!
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.
Please oh please don't color it purple and make it walk around singing.. I would be forced to defend myself with a large baseball bat.
Hmm... actually that might be fun..
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So in other words... you should probably wash the butter and salt residue off your fingers before putting your hands near its face.
If my rats (deemed some of the smarter rodents) can't figure out the difference between a food-coated finger and actual food... I'm not about to trust some disney AI!
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.
U expect the company to make you happy and though some people seem to have this delusion that disney is evil, I for one loved the Disney World Theme park. It was 5 glorious days. When u have have kids and raised them for a few yrs, u will find any means to get away for sometime (even if that means liking Barney).
I don't think that even Disney could pull off a biped. Mabye the could have a T. rex use its tail, but my bet is a protoceratops. They look enough like a triceretops to be familiar, but don't have all those horns to get in the way of customer interaction.
But they might surprise us with a less familiar animal. A Maiasaurus would be so cuddly as to destroy the effect of having a dinosaur in the first place, but there are pleny of cool looking obscure things that they could use.
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