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Homemade Mecha Walks in Japan
EtherAlchemist writes "Sakakibara Kikai has pictures and even a movie of their Land Walker robot (Babelfish translation here) which appears to work. Powered by a 250cc gas engine and armed with several guns (including 2 that fire Nerf-like balls) it stands at a little over 3 meters. What makes this one interesting is that it is actually armed and it is piloted instead of being an exo-skeleton. Makes me wonder if the creators of shows like Robotech or comics/RPGs like Battletech have any kind of licensening rights on appearance. I'd like to see a Warhammer..."
> Makes me wonder if the creators of shows like Robotech or comics/RPGs like Battletech have any kind of licensening rights on appearance.
This may sound like a troll, but I don't mean it that way:
Just because in this day and age people can sue other people for just about any reason, doesn't mean that everything needs to be turned into a legal issue.
If I was a member of this mecha's development team and I read this, I'd seriously be wondering whether inclusion on slashdot was really such a good thing after all.
"You can justify anything by putting it in quotes, adding a famous name and making it a sig" - Albert Einstein
*gak*
It moves along on wheels under the feet - think roller-skates. Also, think of how a large, mainly top-heavy (I'll bet the legs' only function is as ballast) thing scooting along ... on roller-skates. It is unstable. :(
Neat, but ... well, if you're going to build something like this, why not at least have it walk or do something more useful with the legs than provide ballast? Also, a gyro might help with this thing's drunken swagger.
It's not that it's terrible ... but I think it doesn't even perform up to the same bar that has been set by exoskeleton systems.
Mecha started with "Giant Robots" which were really Japan's way of doing Sci-fi while tying back to its Samurai roots.
When you actually look objectively at what a "Mech" would require, engineeringwise, and how it would pose risks to the human pilot, you realize how it will never become a reality, no matter how much R&D is spent.
When you watch an anime battle with Mecha you see a lot of instances of these things doing hairpin turns and falling to the ground and bouncing around in a jarring fashion. Even today jet pilots can not pull certain maneuvers without blacking out from the G-forces. The kinds of things you see in anime would kill a human pilot instantly without some kind of magical inertial dampener technology. You'd be lucky if you walked away with just a case of whiplash.
Secondly, we just don't have materials strong enough to build one of these. The joints especially are problematic. There is a real limit to how big these can be without being ultra fragile. If one of these were to fall over, not only would you need help to pick it up, but you'd probably also have to repair it.
Third, power supply. All those motors need energy. How long do you think it will run off an internal battery or some noisy gas engine?
I think it's great to try, but just because it LOOKS like something out of anime doesn't mean it's going to be anything close to as functional, and like I said, even if you could magically produce something that could perform like anime, without those intertial dampenders you REALLY wouldn't want to play around with it.
Good analysis, but let me add just one point...
Military vehicle designers have a name for big round blobs sitting on top of stilts. They call it 'a target'. There is a reason that both the Abram's tank and the Hummer are wide flat vehicles. You get the carrying capacity, and if a shell explodes nearby there is less chance of flipping the vehicle. The typical 'mech' design would be easily toppled and rendered useless with a simple hand tossed grenade, and that big round blob provide lots of area to absorb the blast.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba