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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:
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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...
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