Robotics + Car = Hallucigenia

News for nerds writes "I4U has news about a new transportation concept, called The Hallucigenia 01, which is a working 1/5 scale vehicle prototype, designed by Japanese design firm Leading Edge Design. PC Watch (Japanese) has photos and movies. Its 8 wheels are independent robotic arms controlled by their own satellite CPUs, interconnected to the main CPU by an internal LAN."

Comments

What ever happened to style?

[Vokbain]

It looks like a spider crossed with a skateboard. I wouldn't drive that.

Re:What ever happened to style?

[Joe Tie.]

Going by the name, it sounds like they're tarketing a group of people to whom 'most' things look like spiders crossed with other things.

What a name

[OSUJoe]

Are they implying that the idea for the car came from a night spent tripping on acid.. or... ??

Movies? On slashdot?

[Steve 'Rim' Jobs]

Soon we will hear the deep voice of Darth Vader saying "I find your lack of bandwidth disturbing..."

Why did I think of that? I dunno, maybe it's because the car looks kinda like Darth's friggen head..

Wow!

[Anonymous Coward]

How can I give these guys money?! Someone tell me quick... nevermind, the drugs are losing their effect.

Re:I don't get it

[Prof. Pi]

Why does it need to have multiple computers networked? Redundancy in case of failure. You see, they'll be running Windows.

Wow

[nnnneedles]

Its 8 wheels are independent robotic arms controlled by their own satellite CPUs, interconnected to the main CPU by an internal LAN." Got Bloat?

Do the wheels play multiplayer Quake with each other in their spare time?

Is the communication between the wheel and the brake done using XML protocols?

Do the wheels send an email to your mobile phone when your refrigerator has run out of milk?

Critical Joke Possiblities OVERLOAD

Brain Terminated.

ummm wow

[britrock]

Well, it does a great job of navigating over the rough terrain of that flat smooth table top. Whats the point again?

But I'm a Plus_size guy.

[EmbeddedJanitor]

It was a long time since I was 1/5th scale!

Re:I don't get it

[razberry636]

Wouldn't one computer, rather than several, with the proper sensory and control hardware be a better choice?

The eight independent robots can separate at will. They join together and magically work in unison to form megaHallucigenia .

It also has a really cool glowing sword and can shoot plastic missiles.

What I really like about Japan...

[Jeremi]

... is that Japanese engineers are allowed to explore interesting and creative new technology designs, despite every armchair critic in the world immediately telling them how stupid/unsafe/infeasible/unnecessary their prototype is.

That's why they'll eventually have their giant killer robots, while we're still optimizing the super-sized cup-holder layout for our pickup trucks.

Re:What I really like about Japan...

[Inflatable Hippo]

> Actually, it's well established that Japanese
> engineers largely use foreign designs as their
> prototypes.

It's great when things are "well established" isn't it? We can just accept them as a given and shift our critical reasoning down a gear or two.

Here is a list of other things that have been well established about the Japanese:

- They are short.
- They wear little round glasses.
- They have buck teeth.
- They are all Ninjas.

I'm British and I'd guess you're an American. Perhaps someone would like to contribute some "well established" facts about us? I'm sure we'd be glad to confirm them.

Excuse me, must dash, my butler has just informed me that Mary Poppins has dropped in for afternoon tea...

I'd like to see..

[trybywrench]

the japanese take on the club sandwich. I bet it's smaller and more efficient.