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Walking Animatronic Dinosaur At Disney Park
Dan Howland writes "Shades of Jurassic Park: Disney's first walk-around, interactive animatronic character, Lucky the dinosaur, is now strolling around Disney's California Adventure, but will probably move to Disney's Animal Kingdom in the coming weeks. It kinda walks on two legs, just as the rumors promised, but actually pulls a cart for additional balance (and to hide the computers). Videos can be found on the link above. More photos, and a video of Lucky blowing his nose here."
Last year I was at Disney and they had this talking trach can that I assume was radio controlled. It looked like all the other trash cans except it would more around and talk. It really shocked the hell out of people. This dinosaur should be a riot!
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
They actually already made one. As N8F8 mentioned the talking trash can, a very identical robot was made to represent R2D2. He rolled around with one of the parades. Both are fairly ingenious. They look like they are completely self controlled and no one has anything to do with them. However, if you watch the people who are nearby, you will see someone who looks like they have a messanger bag on their back with their hand stuck in it. (Put on hand on the small of your back, and then imagine a messanger bag covering it) Inside that bag are the controls for the robot. The cast member controlling the robot dresses and acts like a tourist, the only giveaway is that he follows the trash can alot, and goes backstage after the robot. I'm not sure how the trashcan talks, cause I didn't see the cast members mouth move (ventriloquism?) but there is very possibly a camera in the trash can, which stream video to another cast member who provides the voice. I'm not sure. The one who walks with R2D2 was dressed like the cast members who simply police the parade route. They are using something similar for Lucky. I'm not sure which article I read that mentioned this, but he has two cast members who control him. (Three cast members for such a small attraction seems high by their current casting levels) I imagine the same thing applies. Look for two people who are following the dinosaur around with their hands hidden behind their back in a messanger bag.
Animatronic Slavery
I'm more of a fan of SRL (www.srl.org) where they are downright dangerous. That in mind though I have to wonder if the creators of this robot have seriously taken the dangers into account. With srl danger is just implied and you know these things can hurt you. In this case I want to know if can it step on a child? Can it run a child over? Just curious. end15 my ears are ringing and I can't answer them...
All glory to the Hypnotoad!
I had Robie Sr and he kicked ass! :) You could play music with the cassette player in his torso, and you could also record movement sequences on said tape deck. You could talk through the remote control and have your voice come out through his head. In fact (wow, serious flashback!) I hacked my telephone and wired the audio into the mic in jack on Robie, so everyone I talked to on the phone had a robotic avatar of sorts.
I programmed a sequence for him to wake me up each morning (using his built-in alarm clock) to roll over to my bed side and start yelling at me (in my own voice) to get out of bed. I used to have him hold my police scanner, too, and jacked the audio to the line in. I don't know, I guess everything seemed funnier when the sound was routed through a robot whose mouth lit up as a VU meter. That, and being able to turn his eyes on as headlights was pretty cool, too. I really tinkered with that thing, too. I figured out how to route my voice to his command channel, what pitch to shriek at to emulate commands from the remote, and how to cut the power to the remote with the voice channel open and use him to listen to neighbors' cordless phones. Man, I have been a geek for a long, long time.
[/me slams phone down on the beach and exits frame right]
Intelligent Life on Earth
"Every time I think that Disney is dying,"
Yeah, I can see how you can confuse a multi-billion dollar corporation with a disturbing amount of mindshare, a die-hard fan-base that can make some practicioners of Scientology look sane in comparison, and a nasty track record of using/abusing copyright law (and those who write it) with, say, BSD.
"I forget who said this...
"Walt Disney has contributed more happiness to the world than all the religions combined.""
Whoever it was obviously didn't take into account Buena Vista's membership in the MPAA.
Disney finally remembered they have a theme park in California.
Nevermind. Lucky's going to florida. Now the only attractions are the peeling paint and the disintegrating rides.
-transiit
Looks like the puppetry is really good. Looks like there's a giant mass of batteries in the cart. Sounds like the motors are really noisy - atleast when the head turns.
For a real walking robot dinosaur take a look at Troody.
Lucky has been removed from DCA. He will be making an appearance at the Natural History Museum tomorrow (Thursday) morning, and then he's "going home." We're not sure if "going home" means back to Glendale (Imagineering) or as rumored to the Animal Kingdom park in Florida. There are no more DCA appearances scheduled. This is all subject to change, but that's the latest as of today.
Vista:XPSP2::ME:98SE
Mechanical Engineering Magazine (from ASME) has a couple of related articles on Disney Animatronics, for those interested:
Wild mouse in the funhouse (2000)
The fantastical meets the practical (1997)