Slashdot Mirror
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."
It is a little animal found in the Burgess Shale of Canada. See the Stephen Jay Gould Book "Wonderful Life" for details. Here is a picture:
l
http://www.karencarr.com/gallery_hallucigenia.htm
Judging from the shape of the logo, I suspect this is a reference to Hallucigenia sparsa, a reasonably famous critter they dug out of the Burgess Shale, missassigned as part of genus Canadia and was later renamed and reassigned by Simon Conway Morris. More here. Article links to a possible reconstruction which seems to be down for me.
Paleobiology. This is a nerdy conveyance if I ever saw one.
YLFIOne god, one market, one truth, one consumer.
From looking at the pictures, it seems that the wheels can rotate perpendicular to the length of the vehicle. Should make parallel parking a breeze.
From looking at the videos, it does.
It also goes sideways, up and down a bit, and can walk (akwardly) on them 4 at a time.
Does all sort of crazy cool stuff.
You can't take the sky from me...
In preparation for the sites inevitable
Mirrors:
Pictures
Movies
Still #1 -- Lonely Gay Geek
Hallucigenia means "Dream Children" and is a name of a small worm belonging to the Burgess-Shale collection of fossils
Researcher Simon Conway Morris had probably been working overnight a little too often, since he mistook the fossil for an eerie monster-like creature with a blob like head and spikes for legs, thus dubbing it "Hallucigenia". See the picture. Looks a little bit like Alien, doesn't it?
It was only in 1991 that this strange little animal's anatomy was correctly interpreted as a worm, the Onychophore, with spikes on it's back and tentacles or, better, pseudopods for walking (and probably eating).
I wonder if the pictures of this car are upside down...
Hack your mind out of its sandbox.
I bet it's not as cool as the BMW Streetcarver. I want one, but no doubt I'd just write it off with my dismal 'skillz'.
Seriously, I would love some kind of powered skateboard, as they're very good for getting around tight parts of town ( and being able to pick them up is very convenient... ), but they're going to have to make them very easy riding ( perhaps with that suspension system from Snow Crash ) before it will ever take off with the masses.
YLFIOne god, one market, one truth, one consumer.
The ability to travel in one direction while independantly rotating in another (and it looks like this eight legged freak can do that to an extent) is called holonomic motion. Robotics people have been doing this for years with something called an omniwheel. Basically its a wheel that contains many other smaller wheels that roll perpendicular to the axis of the big wheel.
6 -4CM-ROL LER.htmlg ins/MivaEmpre sas/miva?plugins/MivaMerchants/merchant.mvc+Screen =PROD&Store_Code=KCWD&Product_Code=2052-38&Categor y_Code=Transwheel2 :) )
We can do holonomic motion with as little as three wheels (popularlized by the palm robots from carnegie melon). Of course, four wheeled models have been made.
And I really think that it is from the four omniwheel concept that will really revolutionize travel, not this eight legged, asking to break down, feat of engineering.
(Of course, mandatory info links:
The wheels found on the palm robot:
http://www.acroname.com/robotics/parts/R7
Cheaper, and larger, omniwheels:
http://www.omniwheel.com/cgi-bin/plu
The above are one of each, there are many more on both sites. Just start url hacking
This
But it DOES walk.
/ 12 /furo236.mov
you simply need to WTFV (watch the f'ing videos)
http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2003/yajiuma
This