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Robots With Square Wheels?
Roland Piquepaille writes "About eighteen months ago, I told you about a tricycle with square wheels which needed a specially designed road. But now, Distributed Robotics, a company from Troy, N.Y., is developing robots with square wheels which don't need specific roads. These new 'cars' propel themselves on flat surfaces by taking advantage of gravity. This might sound crazy, but the inventors think it could lead to new robots and toys, and more generally to new micro-machines or MEMS applications."
So, instead of a donut for a flat, do you get a danish?
The opposite of progress is congress
OMG
"The shifting weight sequentially drives each wheel that is under the weight to sit flat on the ground, thus moving the other wheels in a rotational manner, and the car in a linear direction; reversing the direction of the rotating weight, reverses the direction of the car. There are also several methods for steering the car that are under development" says Steven Winckler, President of Global Composites.
This thing has a rotating hammer around its roof and just moves around based on the shifting weight.
Thats should be fun on the motorway in a morning
Why are folks so obsessed with literally reinventing the wheel?
liqbase
With square wheels, these new and improved robots are especially well adapted to climbing stairs. Do you have stairs in your house?
SIG: TAKE OFF EVERY 'CAPTAIN'!!
This research is childsplay. Its not as if they're reinventing the... oh, wait...
I bet google is getting into this thing to complete the total pwnage!!1!!11
Rev.2 will have triangelshaped wheels. The benefit You might ask? Well, 1 less hump pr. rotation.
I think this is a really good idea for moving any sort of vehicle forward. However, I have an idea that might make it even more efficient... perhaps they could cut off the corners of the wheels to create an octagonal wheel, which would mean less force would be required to turn the wheel. Maybe, somewhere down the line, it could be expanded even further to have more sides and even fewer sharp angles. Now that I think of it, perhaps the edge of the wheel could be configured in some sort of smooth "curve" to eliminate corners altogether... hmmm... imagine what it could evolve into someday.
It looks like these improvements of mine could really take off and go somewhere. I'd better patent it.
This might sound crazy, but the inventors think it could lead to new robots
Will these be killer robots with lasers? If so, put me down for about 50 of them, and deliver them to Roland's place.
I think they are trying to reinvent the wheel here...
I have to ask: why? What is the advantage of this means of propulsion? What are the special applications for this system?
It's not a perpetum mobile; it needs energy to work, just like any other propulsion system. It seems to me that this type of propulsion would have a significantly lower efficiency than an ordinary, circular wheel system.
Neither the article, nor the homepage (which just went on it's knees, so don't bother clicking the link anytime today. They have a counter that will only go as high as 99999 visitors, poor fools) explains why this would be a superior means of propulsion for any application.
SIG: TAKE OFF EVERY 'CAPTAIN'!!
The vehicle described here, and built as a prototype, has 4 square wheels each with different orientations (evenly spaced). When the front left wheel sits flat the rear left wheel is 1/16th of a turn from being flat. Shifting the center of gravity of the car towards that rear left wheel causes it to 'fall' forward to sit flat, which rotates all 4 wheels 1/16th of a turn. The front left wheel is now 1/16th past flat (and 3/16ths from the lying flat on its next side) and the rear right wheel is 1/16th from being flat. Shift the weight to the rear right and it rolls forward another 1/16th of a turn. This produces moderately wobbly and slightly jerky motion, but could prove to be a simpler method of locomotion at very small scales, especially if magnetism instead of gravity is used to pull the wheels down/forward.
"Thats should be fun on the motorway in a morning"
True. Running over "robots, micro machines, novelty toys, and others" on your way to work might give you a flat.
http://www.globalcomposites.net.nyud.net:8090/Rein venting%20the%20Wheel%201.mpg
About as useless as the $60,000 pieces of paper that come from that town (www.rpi.edu).
I don't know how parents will take to a toy with four spinning pointy wheels and a rotating hammer on top.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
::sings:: Weeee're on the islannnd of miiiisfit tooooyyyys....
Okay, I'll go sit in my [square] corner now.
How can a post be modded "overrated" or "underrated" when it hasn't been rated yet?
With a drive system that relies on gravity and a horizontal swinging weight, these Rube Golberg contraptions would be especially ill-adapted to climbing any inclined surface.
Put it at a stair-climbing angle and when the hammer swings to the back it'll just tumble backwards.
The next blog entry on a page hit whore's site is ready now, but subscribers can see it early.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
Looks like Rudolph's misfit train will finally have a purpose.
AccountKiller
A few moments playing it out in your head will make it obvious that square wheels are actually worse at climbing stairs than round ones. Sitting on them, sure. Climbing them, not so much. A star-shaped wheel might be better, but it'd have to be big (each flat side as long as the step itself) which means a big vehicle, which means a big, heavy swinging hammer jerking the vehicle in every direction on it's way up.
And that still wouldn't work, even if you shifted the hammer forward to keep it from throwing itself down the stairs. The things propulsion comes from each wheel being offset from each other, but being offset for propulsion means they can't all maintain optimal contact with the steps.
This thing is limited to running on a flat, smooth, hard, obstacle-free, level surface, and doesn't even move smoothly on that. Plus swinging a large hammer seems much less efficient than driving a small wheel. It's a curiosity with no practical application. The tag at the bottom of slashdots page ATM is apt: Too clever is dumb.
Any day now someone is going to figure out that the current rules let you patent the circle. Wheels prices (and everything else based on circles) will cost a fortune and be out of most peoples reach. We will praise this guy with his square wheels for saving us from the evil corporation (unless of course he patents the square - triangular wheels anyone?).
I used to have a better sig but it broke.
I'd like to see this square-wheel-robot in action, but the link to the video on the site has obviously been slashdotted, or else they're running the whole site off a dial-up modem. Anyway, according to Firefox, it's going to be another 12 hours before I can see the video. Any chance anybody saved it before it got slashdotted and can post a mirror somewhere? Here was the original link: http://www.globalcomposites.net/Reinventing%20the% 20Wheel%201.mpg
-Arthur
Cave ne ante ullas catapultas ambules
I just saw this great report on television the other day. It turns out no one wants a Charlie in the Box, a squirtgun that squirts jelly, or a robot with square wheels. They're all just Misfits.
Oh, and Bumbles bounce.
(I wish that Google NEWS would stop including these PR vanity sites in results. Most of them will take any old kind of anonymous post with zero checking and put it up on their site, then Google sweeps it up and uses it as a source for GoogleNews searches.)
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Now you can have square wheels to go with your box car
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Apparently the mods didn't get your South Park reference.
wow. those canidian cars from south park are now a realiaty :P
But seriously. less work would be involved in using round wheels, using less power and therfore better for a robot. so whats the point of Squaree wheels i ask?
Wouldn't, in fact, "reinventing" the wheel be simply using a wheel for a different purpose than transporting things?
There's no way a vehicle can move straigth along a road that is a closed loop. At best it could move straigth for a short while, but eventually the road has to curve to be able to close back on itself.
It could if the loop was infinite.
SteveM
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Scientists make use of extensive surplus budget to create the new threadless screw.
"We think this new screw will help the industry by providing a less complex fastening device for the end users, and it should be more economical for manufacturers as well."
The new threadless screw serves the same function as a traditional screw, but doesn't require a complex torque-riddled installaton process. Simple repeated impacts will drive the new screw home with far less effort.
"The average consumer is often frustrated with traditional screw technology. Do you need flat heads, phillips, star-point? Will sheet metal screw threads work, or do you need the heftier wood threads? Self-threading points, or rounded? It's mind-boggling! These new screws are great. They only have one head type, and you just pick the length and heft you need. That's all!"
Scientists expect the threadless screw to be a big hit in 2006, and look forward to tackling the next problem at hand.
"We're thinking of developing a shorter lever next year... One that doesn't require so much space to operate. It will have less leverage, but most people don't really use the leverage their current levers provide."
After 100 000 years of evolution we go right back to the start.
Just replace the offset weight by a helium balloon.
Reduce, reuse, cycle
Why stop at square wheels? Why not hexagonal wheels or rectangular wheels?
I'm sure the japanese are already ten steps ahead at making hexagonal wheels.
>Robots With Square Wheels?
Me thinks this robot is meant for the Department of Defense, because military is the only place where they carry the ball and roll the cube.
Oh come on! Nobody bashing Roland Piquepaille?!?! You disappoint me guys. You really disappoint me... ;)
Before starting our long working week, let's relax with this story of a bicycle with square wheels. No, it's not a joke. And it even rides smoothly. But there is a trick: the road must have a specific shape. The Math Trek section of Science News Online tells us more about this strange bicycle -- actually a tricycle with one front wheel and two back wheels.
Here is Stan Wagon riding his tricycle (Credit: Stan Wagon).
http://radio.weblogs.com.nyud.net:8090/0105910/im
In fact, the idea is not new, and Wagon picked it after seeing an exhibit about square wheels at the Exploratorium in San Francisco. But Wagon went further by exploring the relationship between all kinds of wheels and road shapes.
Here is the conclusion of the article.
So why don't you try to solve this math puzzle?
It seems that we have come full square...
In Soviet Russia, Road Invents Wheel!
Captchas suck
Even the Hooloovoo?
Then we may be in trouble.
Exam 4/C again. Maybe I'll do better this time.
Can someone tell me what is the F-ing purpose of this? I read the article, but why oh why are ROUND F-ing wheels not good enough? So now I need a rotating death weight to move. Great. Can someone find these people a USEFUL project to expend their talents on?
Oh yeah, dogs laugh and my nuts itch.
Looking at the photo in the article, this seems like a perfect project to implement in Lego Mindstorms. Anyone up for it?
siener's youtube channel
In other news, baking researchers have found a new way to create bread segments that requires fewer steps than traditional slicing.
Has anyone noticed that this smells a lot like the perpetual motion machines widely purported (but never actually seen working) from the late 19th century? There's been plenty of coverage of the subject, and this just sounds like yet another variation on "harnessing gravity's power" and getting "free energy". :/
go up and look there... this is discussed there; one of the implied constraints is that the path be linear, and while this may be intended to avoid bouncing. it also rules out your solutian. Except in for a circle of infinite radius.
The Superloop has been out for quite awhile now hasn't it?
Turning would mean that the outside wheels would cover more distance, which would throw off the synchronized movement of the 4 wheels.
A post a day keeps productivity at bay.
"Honey, I need to take the car to the tire shop and get the corners sharpened."
Even on a small scale, concentrating the weight on even a rounded edge like that would seem an invitation to excessive wear, both on the wheels and on the surface it runs on.
About as practical as high heels.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
extremely slowly and carefully?
From what I see, this whole design is only practical at small scale, where the simplicity is needed. I've been wrong before though.
cyn, free software and *nix operating systems enthusiast.
There's 2 reasons this is useful.
1. At small scales rolling resistance is much higher. -- because surface smoothness is relatively much choppier. -- benefit of round wheels and gliding potenitial is much less.
It moves by wobbling from side to side with a weight moving like a helicopter rotor to sequentially push down on each wheel. so,
2. This simplifies small scale motion, because you dont need gears, axels or chains to transfer motor rotation into differen axes.
I prefer apple turnovers.
All the cars on the earth(which is round) has round wheels!!!!
Yes, but only Katamari Darmacii can build a car big enough to take advantage of that.
The video is also available at the following mirror:
e %20Wheel%201.mpg
ftp://mirror.cefetpr.br/pub/misc/Reinventing%20th
Just wondering
Not only did you miss the joke, you didn't even ge the right fastener.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Still, analyzing why it would be so bad at stairs leaves you with an excellent sense of why it wouldn't be suitable for any surface except the artificially perfect sort that conventional wheels and drive systems already perform so much faster, smoother, and more efficiently on. Some guys found a novel way to make a thing stumble awkwardly forward under ideal conditions and are trying to get some quick PR by claiming it could be useful for something when it's really just a solution - and not even a very good one - in search of a problem.
Does anybody else remember the Mr. Wizard episode where he showed the kids all the other types of wheel one could use? They tried them out on a mock-up small car, there was a triangle with rounded corners, and maybe a square.
no one has made a road and a wheel in which the two are the same? obviously this person has never used a gear and rail... duh...
It looks like it could set off in the wrong direction, or just rock back and forth. What decides which direction it moves in?
Xenu loves you!
Cat got your tongue? (something important seems to be missing from your comment ... like the body or the subject!)
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, it doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
Heck, walking is a kind of controlled falling using weight management and multiple levers; Lean forward and flip out your leg thingies to stop yourself from crashing. Repeat.
Rah rah for useless research! Science for the heck of it!
-FL
They're bringing back Micro-machines now too? Great! I loved those things...will the fast talking guy be back also?
the rest of us would look for ways to increase the humping...
-- it's ridiculous how many people misspell ridiculous... (damn, damn, damn...)
At sizes that MEMs are made, gravity is not a significant factor. Surface tension and electrostatic charge would be the dominant forces.
Well. The prototype robot image shown does look vaguely bogus. First, the image resolution is terrible, so you cannot make out details. Second, the prototype--as best as I can tell--appears to be made out of styrofoam.
Before you come up with your next objection, ask yourself if it's plausible that the mathematicians involved are too dumb to have thought of it already.
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
Ten steps ahead would mean tetradecagon wheels, not hexagons ;)
My one issue is that since they're square, the straight edges might catch on anything that isn't perfectly flat. I don't know about the NY urban infrastructure but here in Toronto Canada, we have so many potholes that it'd without a doubt bone that robot.
The first article had the following challenge:
<i>So far, no one has found a road-and wheel combination in which the road has the same shape as the wheel. That's an intriguing challenge for mathematicians.</i>
Uhm, make a tricycle with spherical wheels and make my road the whole earth.
... was the paragraph:
The main driving force for the table top prototype is produced by gravity pulling downward. Other forces that could hold the car against a surface, and provide the moving force necessary to increment the car along, include aerodynamic, hydrodynamic, magnetic, electromagnetic, and electrostatic. Such forces could be independent of the car mass, and could thus propel the vehicle with much greater force and velocity. In some instances, these forces could provide their own means to move from wheel to wheel, eliminating the central motor used in the prototype.
How many people here read that and immediately thought "Hey, perpetual motion machine!"?
They do seem to be claiming that their "car" could move across a level surface powered only by an external static field. Thus, on a surface that's a smooth sphere, it would continue to travel along a great circle forever.
If they solve the turning problem, they can make it travel around in a small circle, thus powering a small motor at the center of the circle.
Why do I have this feeling that it just might not work?
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
Its another hair brained scheme to ... drum up venture capital!
...
1. Re-invent the wheel
2.
3. Profit!
Sure, you can use a square wheel, but the axle is still a cylinder....
True Daleks don't climb stairs: they level the building. (More pedantically, Daleks can fly.)
qntm.org
These new 'cars' propel themselves on flat surfaces by taking advantage of gravity.
*looking for cars that have wheels which don't depend on gravity*
Kent Simon Multitheft Auto
Every time the unit lurches forward, driven by gravity, one of the wheels flattens against the road. At this point, the motive weight is rotated to the next corner of the unit, which will be "uphill" from the current corner (because its wheel isn't flat against the road). Then the unit lurches forward again because the new current corner is now heavier, which flattens a different wheel against the road. The weight must be continually rotated "uphill", so it's clear that outside energy must be added to the system.
These toys will well fit anyone who tries to rule Fantastica
Is it a reference to any meme-joke I should be aware of?
I made one of these too, but mine works a little different. See, what you do is you get in, stick your feet through holes in the bottom, and walk.
Mine provides a smoother ride. And I didn't need no fancy composites to build it either...
I I I f- for w- one w- w- welc- come our n- new bu bu bump-py ov-v-verl-l-lord-ds
-- All your bass are below two Hz
i see no use for this invention. you can move faster and more smooth with round wheels and there is no need to exert so much effort to move a small amount of distance
http://www.npcgaming.com Dedicated Gaming Servers
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."