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Robosaurus
wpiman writes "The US airforce released this picture of Robosaurus at an airshow. Robosaurus is a purely entertainment robot that stands some 40 feet tall and weighs 30 tons. It can pick up cars, bite them in half, and spits fire. No- it does not appear to run linux." If you look closely, you can just make out Homer and Marge in the car.
Grr, I was going to go to the airshow, but instead parked down the street a bit. My sister went, but didn't say anything about a car eating dinosaur... Nothing on the news either. Why am I just hearing about something like this that happened no more then 3 miles from me? March Air Force(Reserve now) Base is actually in Moreno Valley, CA - right on the border of Perris, about 5 miles from Riverside as the article states. This town practically died when the base got shut down.
I saw this in the superdome in N.O. when I was 12 (1992). I remember I sat in the cheap seats up high which was about where the flames exausted at. All I really remember is how it tore through a van and it was REALLY HOT.
About a year later fireworks caught the roof of the dome on fire. After that, No more Truck-o-Saurus
Check out the Waldo style user interface this thing has.
In 1991 I was driving on I-35 in Iowa out in the middle of nowhere between Des Moines and Minneapolis. I overtook Robosaurus, folded down and being transported by a Semi.
This appears to be an updated version of at least the face. If the guy (or gal) who built / owns / shows Robosaurus has figured out a way to make a living at it for all these years, then I say, more power to 'em.
Besides what else you gonna do with a car-eating, fire-breathing robot than show him off for cash. His diet of cars, although high in iron, is nevertheless pretty pricey.
to the Engineer, the glass is neither half full nor half empty. Its just two times too big.
So is it still as lame as it was in the '80's? I remember seeing it once at the Abbotsford Air Show one year, but they didn't bring it back.
It was less entertaining than watching a big Cat or John Deere power bucket loader with a grip claw at work. Certainly not as impressive as watching some log yard equipment work (the ones with the HUGE claws that pick up stacks of logs like one would pick up a handful of straws) and drive them around the log yard.
Of course, this is using off-the-shelf components, etc., but it is totally not graceful in its action, painfully slow (but admittedly, powerful) in action, etc. Too bad old car assembly robotics equipment does't show up on EBay much. Maybe then they could add some grace to Robosaurus. Ag equipment (say, a big 8-wheel tractor pulling a 16-blade plow at about 10mph, etc) is more fun to watch than Robosaurus.
Why not just show off a Cat D11 instead? Those things are insanely huge and powerful. Yes, getting it there would probably be a PITA (would have to remove the blade, the tracks, etc).