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STriDER, a Three-Legged Walking Robot
Roland Piquepaille writes "In a short article, New Scientist reports that researchers at Virginia Tech University have developed a tripedal experimental robot. With its three legs, this robot, named STriDER — short for 'Self-excited Tripedal Dynamic Experimental Robot' — is actually more stable than 2- or 4-legged robots. As said another researcher, 'It's like a biped with a walking stick.' This robot is intended to deploy sensors and cameras in difficult-to-access areas."
"Self-excited?" Tripod? And we're not supposed to make naughty jokes about this?
u-bend
Interesting concept, except that with the way it moves, it can't really walk in a straight line.
Because it swings one leg outward from the rear to the front, it's always going to essentially be side-stepping a width that's in direct proportion to the length of its legs. If it starts in a position like <|, with two legs up front and one in the rear, and then swings the rear leg outward to position |>, the next step has to be to the left or right sides. It could every other stuff in reverse and zig-zag for the net effect of a straight line, but it wouldn't work well for very narrow spaces unless it could dynamically adjust the height of its legs.
Nevertheless, I'd love to see one run at some point!
Some guy in our neighborhood had one of these. I never saw it. But every time it snowed, tracks made by the 3 legged robot would begin showing up. What was really clever was how he molded animal paws on the feet to improve traction.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
Our new tripod overlords. My only question, are they HG Wells-style or John Christopher-style?
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
I can't believe no-one made a joke about Half-Life 2 and the Combine's Striders.
I wonder if Gordon is in on this project?
JOURNALIST: Quickly, one after the other, four of the Fighting Machines appeared. Monstrous tripods, higher than the tallest steeple, striding over the pine trees and smashing them. Walking engines of glittering metal. Each carried a huge funnel and I realized with horror that I'd seen this awful thing before.
A fifth Machine appeared on the far bank. It raised itself to full height, flourished the funnel high in the air - and the ghostly, terrible Heat Ray struck the town.
The House Between - Original Sci-Fi Series
You hot-shot computer geeks at /. ought to b able create a new story filter - that permits any story with the string of random letters "Roland Piquepaille" to be filtered out. As a public service, of course. Clearly the Ed's aren't up to the task.
Brett
'It's like a biped with a long dick.'
Fixed.
Hm, I'd say it's more like a nine-legged dog that's had six legs removed.
Seriously, does he think it's that difficult for people to conceive of something with three legs?
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
R2D2 denies being self-excited, and says he only keeps replaying that hologram of Leia for sentimental reasons.
The article can never take your fun if you just refuse to read it. I mean come on...who needs to know what they are commenting about around here?
The full name of the school is "Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University." "Virginia Tech" is an official trademark. "Virginia Tech University" draws angry, red-pen-toting alums.
Just thought I'd let you know...
I like this one better:
Anthromorphized
Roving
Asymmetrically
Gaited
Off-balance
Robotic
Novelty
Dan East
Better known as 318230.
> And it's worth pointing out that it turns itself upside down every time it takes a step. This would, I think,
> end up being a real bear of a problem in a practical robot... sometimes the head's on the top... sometimes the
> head's on the bottom. It also has each of the three sides being the "front" alternately-- so, essentially, it
> has no front... Still, it's pretty darn cool.
So just put a chaingun on all 3 surfaces and make sure the ammunition feed can handle being inverted. What's the problem?
25% Funny, 25% Insightful, 25% Informative, 25% Troll
I'm not an expert on this - but I'm sure there is a good reason why 3 legged things aren't popular in nature.
Control is an illusion, order our comforting lie. From chaos, through chaos, into chaos we fly
The lack of 3-legged things is an "unintended" side effect of the fact that bilateral symmetry is practically ubiquitous in animals (excepting sponges and cnidarians), and any animal with bilateral symmetry is going to end up with an even number of legs. Bilateral symmetry has many evolutionary "uses" aside from locomotion, so it's fair to presume that an odd number of legs *could* still result in efficient locomotion.
Things with wheels aren't popular in nature either, but that doesn't mean wheels aren't effective for locomotion.