Duke Robot Climbs to Victory in Madrid

neutron_p writes "A wall-climbing, book-sized autonomous vehicle made by a Duke University team drove up a challenging vertical course to win first prize in an international competition in Madrid. Their robot Wallter was the only one that could start flat on the floor and climb the wall on its own, go over a barrier across the wall or stop itself after crossing the finish line."

Comments

More than just a cliche!

[American AC in Paris]

From the article:

According to Burney, the Duke vehicle set itself apart when it rolled to the foot of a metallic wall, reared up on its hind wheels, and used a "tornado in a cup" to hug the wall and start its ascent...

..."It's a tornado in a cup, but no ordinary tornado," Janet said. "Two vortexes swirl simultaneously, one in a spiral and the other in a toroidal path, like a donut. The forces generated hold the vehicle to the wall and yet allow free movement because the cup never touches the surface."

Huh. Duke really does suck!

attachment for the roomba?

[Over_and_Done]

When will we see this as an add-on for the roomba? Then I could get all of the spiderwebs off of the walls and ceiling, and get the stairs done.

Re:attachment for the roomba?

[Timesprout]

Well if it can clean all that, learn to cook and that vortexy suction thing works I think we may be on the way to obsoleting women.

Question

[Anonymous Coward]

From the article:

The device uses air currents swirling in a cylinder, about the size of an upside-down tuna can, to exert suction on a wall or ceiling.

How is the size of a tuna can any different just because it is upside-down?

Painting the walls?

[se2schul]

Could this be the beginnings of a wall-painting robot? Painting is a tedious task and now that there is a wall climbing robot, I say duct tape a paintbrush to its ass!!

Re:Duke Robot

[Royoken]

yes, the only problem is that it won't be out til 2012.

Competition was fixed

[Timesprout]

There was very clear bias among the judges. I submitted an entry based on a highly advanced cybernetic robot made out of an empty egg carton, two cotton spools, some duct tape, mecano and a little girls pony tail. This very sophisticated device was then velcroed onto spidermans back.

My entry owned all the others when it came to the climbing competition, my entry was able to swing from wall to wall, hang from the ceiling and even managed to rescue a woman from a mugger while all the other entries could do was climb a few cm and fall off. Yet the judges refused to give me first prize. I have vowed never to return to Spain and hope to help humanity by using my robot to climb more walls.

Cheaters never prosper

[Tablizer]

I threw a glob of putty on the wall and filmed it sliming down. Then I played it backward at the competition. I almost won until those pesky kids with the talking dog exposed my cheating.