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11-lb Robot Can Jump 30 Feet Into the Air
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."
One day Boston Dynamics is going to combine all these robots together and kill us all.
4.98951607 kilograms robot can jump 9.14400 meters into the air.
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.
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