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Korean Bipedal Robot Kit
The Black Dragon writes "This has got to be the coolest thing I've seen in a while. It's a bipedal (walks on two legs) robot that you can put together yourself and program with movements. The site is in Korean, but from what I've been able to get from translators and currency exchange, it'll cost about $1,400. (There's a movie embedded half way down.)" Gizmodo has a blurb.
my new robot over--. Wait, we're in charge here. THE ROBOTS WELCOME US!
Because I want a robot army.
Have fun programming a billion dollars worth of those things.
function dstry_enmy($target) { send_fire_signal(adj_arms(eyes_loc($target))); }
When you consider things like Segway costing thousands, and video cards costing $400-$500 and high-end MP3 players at $500+, $1400 is not all that much more. Think of it a different way...5 years ago, you'd pay $2500 for a PII...
even if it was all a pre-programmed sequence. The thing's ability to do headstand, bend and lay down face down flat and get back up, and sidle, etc. It makes for some very flexible movements. It's not a utility robot, certainly.
...where the editors need to define "bipedal" for the SlashDot audience? Have we really gotten that much dumbed down?
Honey, I shrunk the Cygwin
Ok, I'm a little less than impressed by how it walks. Essentially it's waddling, putting it's center of gravity over one "pad" (or foot), moving the other, and then moving the COG to the other pad. Admittedly, this is a decent hack, and it does work.
Stand up, lift up your left foot, and lean to your left without putting down your left foot. It's obsurdly obvious you'll fall down because your center of gravity has shifted to much. This method does work for the robot, and it's not a "hack", because it's the exact same way you walk. It may not be that graceful, but the basic procedure we all use is being mirrored.
Since it's clear that this thing likely its tethered to it's controller...
You're unimpressed with the way it walks, so you've watched the clip on the page. Yet, you've watched the clip on the page and somehow missed completely that it wasn't tethered to anything at all?
I wonder if it would be possible to put more servos in controlling the angle of the pad. Then the pad comes down, and the unit senses if it's tipping, and corrects.
Congratulations. You just described fairly exactly how it works already.
In theory this should produce less waddling, and more realistic walking, right?
Since your theory is how it currently opperates, I'm going to guess the answer is.. no.
I'm against picketing, but I don't know how to show it.
wow. Look at all you wrote, and yet what it comes down to is you just don't know what you're talking about.
I'll spell it out for you: For $1300 us you get this "robot" which is actually a bunch of interconnected servos. You can program "movement" for each server, and play it back. Yeah it looks cool, but it can't walk up to a ball and pick it up.
This thing is no artificial intelligence.
It has no "sight". No ability to see its environment and even make out a sinmple shape (like a ball).
It has no sensors. In other words you could program a fance running sequence, put him down and let him go... and if there's a wall in his way, he'll smack right into it.
It's not self-balancing. All movements are programmed in a sequence, and therefore you program it in a way that keeps it balanced. It won't balance itself.
The list goes on.... We're actually much "farther away" than YOU think.