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Japanese Researchers Create Skiing Robot

Posted by samzenpus on from the can-it-ski-the-k-12 dept.

An anonymous reader writes "In a bid to better understand the art of an effective ski turn researchers have recently built a robot to simulate the exact movements of a skier. The team of researchers from Kanazawa University in Japan built the ski robot to investigate the existing movements of skier's turns and see if there is any room for improvement on current techniques."

12 of 52 comments (clear)

  1. Japan by Dyinobal · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I always laugh at their silly robo projects. It's easy to do but I know that eventually all their silly research projects are going to culminate in something truly astounding. After all the first attempts at flight were silly.

    1. Re:Japan by religious+freak · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I agree with you, but the thing I find interesting in looking at the Japanese economy, and technical prowess leads me to believe this is more than just silly fun - or even more than academics.

      Japanese society is aging rapidly, and their robotic prowess has been projected to be able to provide for the poor and disabled while their society ages. I've heard at least one person hypothesize that this will lead to the first robot/human society on earth, and given their prowess with robotics, I wouldn't be surprised. This should be interesting...

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    2. Re:Japan by MichaelSmith · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Michael Crichton had this bit in (I think) Terminal Man where a company was being paid to develop an automated ping pong playing robot. It was called HAPP (Hopelessly Articulated Ping Pong player). The speculation was that the researchers were being paid to develop a short range ballistic defence system without actually knowing the real objective.

      Building a humanoid skiing robot may deliver insights into how humans keep their balance. Maybe there is a new angle on hydroplane surface vessels with active suspension here.

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  2. Their defense force looks silly wearing snowshoes by RuBLed · · Score: 3, Funny

    It's not silly if your capital city is getting attacked by different monstrosities every week.

  3. Room for improvement by seeker_1us · · Score: 4, Funny

    Hmmm how can we improve a Japaneese robot? It can transform into a jet fighter. It should have lots of weapons, with an activation system keyed to voice recognition so that the pilot has to needlessly scream out their name every single time they are triggered. It needs a theme song sung by a japanese dude with a rich baritone voice and then for some reason lots of little children backing him up.

  4. Crackers, Grommit! We've forgotten the crackers! by mccalli · · Score: 3, Funny

    A skiing robot eh? And there's massively renewed interest in missions to the moon all of a sudden too. Hmmm...

    If it's coin-operated, looks like and oven and is rusty, then run like hell.

    Cheers,
    Ian

  5. ... prone to falling over ... by SimonInOz · · Score: 4, Funny

    From the FA ... a version of the robot with the correct human ratio was very prone to falling over

    I have just the same problem.

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  6. This isn't totally new by torrija · · Score: 5, Informative

    I just found a video of a skiin robot on youtube dated 2008 from the Jozef Stefan Institute in Slovenia: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNWh9DuF3hw

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  7. Ski instructors know the art already... by grrrl · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It's interesting that they need to "decipher" the art of skiing - ask a good ski instructor and they can easily tell you about a lot of optimal body positioning, angles, joint movements etc, to be a great skier. That said, perhaps this is for improving already great skiers... but if they are trying to investigate even more precise angles etc, will a robot really deliver the correct data if it's not anatomically correct? If the center of mass of the robot body is different to a human, surely the angles of the joints and the base of support of the robot for optimal performance will be different to a real person??

    It's also strange that they state "the researchers also programmed a motion plan based on the skiing style of world cup racer Gaku Hirasawa, who turns his waist to face inside the turn arc" when I was taught (while learning to instruct, under the Canadian method) that your feet must initiate the turn, and the body then follows (there should be upper/lower body separation).

    Anyway, interesting... crazy Japanese, they really don't get enough props for loving robots so much!

  8. Re:Crackers, Grommit! We've forgotten the crackers by PrayingWolf · · Score: 2, Funny

    In other news: Cheese syndicates scrambling to build armies of skiing robots for conquering the moon, which, as everybody knows, is made of cheese!

  9. Horace goes skiing! by Rothron+the+Wise · · Score: 2, Insightful

    http://www.bioeddie.co.uk/Spectrum/Images/HoraceGoesSkiing.jpg

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  10. Snowboarding by wjousts · · Score: 2, Funny

    They had originally built a snowboarding robot, but it was too busy smoking pot for them to do any actual research.