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Robots for Air Force Protection
Roland Piquepaille writes "During a demonstration held in San Antonio on August 6, twelve robots intended to protect bases and people were shown to Air Force security directors and to 230 other security professionals. In "Robots display force-protection prowess," Air Force Link tells us the story. "Demonstrations included one robot that crawled up walls and across ceilings, another that clambered over rocks with six rotating legs and a third that wriggled like a snake through a pipe." This summary contains more details, including photos of the "Wall Crawler" climbing a wall and of Hexapod, a robot with six rotating legs walking over a pile of rocks."
Cool stuff, but I think these would be much more intimidating to potential attackers (check out the videos). :)
Did you know you can fertilize your lawn with used motor oil?
The hexapod robot is very likely the one commonly
called RHex. It was basically designed after a
cockroach. You can find a lot more videos of it
on the net. Its performance is truly impressive.
And the best thing: The software for RHex is hosted
on sourceforge!
What's interesting, is that Fisher Stevens, the guy who played Ben Jabituya, is not Indian. He's totally pulling an Apu for that role. He's actually from Evanston, IL, but now lives in NYC. Anyway, I think the reason I'm posting this is that it was a shocking realization to me a few years ago to find that out, so fooled was I as a kid watching Short Circuit.
Oh yeah, and Stevens was in Hackers and Super Mario Bros. And he dated Michelle Pfeiffer.