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Robot Balances on a Single Spherical Wheel
dalangalma writes "Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute have developed a new kind of robot called the Ballbot that balances on a steel ball. Using a mechanism similar to a ball mouse, the Ballbot uses rollers to drive its single, spherical wheel and balance in place or glide around the room. The promise of such dynamically stable robots is that they can be much taller without having to have a wide base, making them much more suitable for working with humans. They are also much more agile, since they can be pushed out of the way easily without falling over. You can read the press release or check out the project's web page when it recovers from traffic."
Tachiko-maaaa!
My daughter's obsessed w/ Tachikoma, as well. She's buying blue everything, to look like one. Her biggest dilemma right now in life, is whether to die her hair purple, (and thus resemble the Major,) or to die her hair blue (and thus resemble a Tachikoma.)
I think this technology could be adapted to human like motion.
... and realized that we have these big flat things underneath us: our feet. And that we might balance ourselves using our various joints.
Turn the ball on the ground into an ankle. That is, put a foot/pod beneath the ball, and the robot balances itself above the foot/pod.
Then it should be stable enough to take a step with the other foot/pod.
I'm thinking: "The reason you can't put two of these side-by-side, joined at the top, and make it walk up stairs, is because there's such a sudden change in it's weight distribution when it picks up one foot. You need something to be stable."
I started asking myself, "How do people do it?",
If you stack up 3 of these things on top of each other, and synchronize their intelligence, can they stand up on top of one another? That's what I want to know now.
Knowing the folks at the robotics institute it'll be about 2 years before we see the army testing out a prototype robot that balances on a ball .... and then uses the ball to crush infantry while launching missiles.
CMU has a lot of great projects like that. Gladiator, Crusher... I know that most individual robot builders mean well, and I have friends who are anti-war at the RI, but seriously, look at who is actually demanding this technology and where it's being used. It's not being used to house the poor.
-bugg