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Robot Walks Like a Human, Requires No Power
MrSeb writes "Today's groundbreaking entry into the Uncanny Valley is a pair of mechanical, robot legs that are propelled entirely by their own weight: they can walk with a human-like gait without motors or external control. Produced by some researchers at Nagoya Institute of Technology in Japan, all the legs require for sustained motion (they walked 100,000 steps, 15km, over 13 hours last year) is a gentle push and a slight downwards slope. They then use same 'principle of falling' that governs human walking, with the transfer of weight (and the slight pull of gravity), pulling the robot into consecutive steps."
Oh wait - small caveat - requires a downhill slope. In the next article we will discover that scientists create a ball that also rolls downhill forever without a power source. OK, maybe it's a feat of balance and engineering but come on...
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Stop calling these robots! Do you call Newton's Cradle a robot as well? What about the Drinking Bird or even the common Slinky? Just b/c it has a shape that is in two pieces like a leg does not a robot make, esp one that relies on gravity to perform any motion.