11-lb Robot Can Jump 30 Feet Into the Air

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11-lb Robot Can Jump 30 Feet Into the Air

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday March 28, 2012 @09:53AM from the there-goes-the-neighborhood dept.

Ruvim writes "Boston Dynamics has developed a 'Sand Flea' 11-lb robot that drives like an RC car, but when it needs to, it can jump 30 feet into the air. An onboard stabilization system keeps it oriented during flight to improve the view from the video uplink and to control landings."

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Leading to conversations like... by Genda · 2012-03-28 09:56 · Score: 3, Funny

Amir... I think we have fleas!!!
One day... by SexyHamster · 2012-03-28 09:57 · Score: 5, Funny

One day Boston Dynamics is going to combine all these robots together and kill us all.
1. Re:One day... by Tommy+Bologna · 2012-03-28 10:21 · Score: 2
  
  I'm sure you think you're kidding.
2. Re:One day... by Tsingi · 2012-03-28 12:24 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  Jumps 11 feet in the air, Skynet. Coincidence? I think not.
3. Re:One day... by chihowa · 2012-03-28 12:30 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Family or not, these are the people that should be loaded into the Soylent Green hoppers first, if they ever bring us to that state.
  Who are you joking? These are the people who will design the Soylent Green hoppers.
  
  --
  If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
It's cool by roman_mir · 2012-03-28 10:00 · Score: 4, Interesting

It's a nice RC toy, but how is it a robot? Just having a receiver, an electric motor to drive and some spring mechanism and a person controlling it over radio makes a robot?

--
You can't handle the truth.
1. Re:It's cool by shadowrat · 2012-03-28 13:56 · Score: 2
  
  I know i'm being nitpicky, but I guess i'd like the see the word reserved for machines that exhibit some higher level of autonomous operation. In many people's minds, a robot should display goal setting beyond, "maintain attitude". It should recognize threats and impediments to it's task and make it's own decisions to get around them. I feel like a self driving car is more of a robot than the stuff coming out of Boston Dynamics.
  
  BigDog's ability to maintain balance when kicked is impressive, but I have a hard time applying the term robot to it. To qualify as robot it seems like there should be an AI that's capable of detecting when a person is about to kick it and scurrying away. It would be really impressive if it learned to recognize who has a high probability of kicking it and set goals to avoid those people if possible.
  
  To me, and i think may others, all these Boston Dynamics contraptions are vehicles, and impressive ones at that, which may someday be paired with a more advanced AI to fulfill our romantic notions of a robot.
frumpy poise by Hognoxious · 2012-03-28 10:03 · Score: 4, Funny

tries to work out GPE ... too confused to do it with units based on an 11th century King's knackerbag.
tries to convert units to metric ... too drunk.
conclusion: I for one welcome our robotic howitzer overlords.

--
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
1. Re:frumpy poise by Yvan256 · 2012-03-28 10:15 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  4.98951607 kilograms robot can jump 9.14400 meters into the air.
2. Re:frumpy poise by Bromskloss · 2012-03-28 12:52 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  I have two words for you: significant figures. Everything else is just noise...metric noise.
  Aghnnn! I'm not at all at ease with having the number of digits written out signify the uncertainty. That's just not very elegant. By that method, you can only express certain ranges (for example "1.45 to 1.55", but neither "1.44 to 1.54" nor "-5 to 17") and it's even dependent on what base you write in! Rather, give uncertainty as a separate number.
  Even more sophisticated would be to specify a probability distribution over possible values, but in the above discussion I assume that one wished to express the uncertainty as a range with sharp boundaries.
  In case anyone wonders, I do myself practise the "significant digits" method when the social context calls for it and I want to please people (so that they give me money, for example), but whenever I can, I follow my heart and do what's right.
  
  --
  Swedish plasma phys. PhD student; MSc EE; knows maths, programming, electronics; finance interest; seeks opportunities
minor issues by v1 · 2012-03-28 10:07 · Score: 4, Insightful

You can see the camera do take cuts before it jumps most times. Either it's chargin' its laser and they cut for time, or it's got other issues. (it may take awhile to say, charge a compressed spring piston)
Another possible angle is it may only be able to set up for the jump if it's right-side-up, and we never see it flipping itself over, so if it found itself upside-down, it could be in trouble?
But those jumps are quite impressive. I got the impression though that it could only do one height of jump, like when you see it jump off the top of the building. I was expecting a short hop to get it off the edge, but it cranks way back and catapults way up and off. So it seems to have a ways to go, development-wise.

--
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
1. Re:minor issues by Tsingi · 2012-03-28 12:31 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Just to reiterate, I actually watched when it jumped from the top of the building to see if the height would be the same. The jump at the top of the building arced ~5 feet. Not near as high as the jump to get to the top.
Re:cool from a geeky point of view... by YrWrstNtmr · 2012-03-28 10:20 · Score: 2

but really, what is the point? We already have controlled flight technology, why waste time on uncontrollable flight?

Why do we still drive trucks when we have helicopters? For a given size, much longer range/endurance/payload than a flying vehicle. Think of a ground vehicle/camera system not being blocked by a fence or compound wall instead of full flight. I imagine it is also much quieter.

Having options is good.
Re:cool from a geeky point of view... by Chris+Burke · 2012-03-28 10:35 · Score: 2

Having options is good.
True dat. And if we're ever attacked by the armies of King Koopa we'll be damn glad we have this hopping robot!

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