RHex Robot Shows Off Parkour Moves

Zothecula writes "Parkour is all about hurling yourself quickly and efficiently past whatever obstacles are in your path while maintaining as much momentum as possible. It's a challenge for humans, so how would robots fare? In an effort to push the boundaries of robotic agility, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania decided to find out by teaching their RHex robot some Parkour moves." See the Kod*lab homepage for much, much more on the RHex family.

Comments

Not much to do with parkour

[Laxori666]

The robot hardly jumps over anything, and when it jumps onto something it doesn't even keep moving. This robot has as much to do with parkour as a baby takings its first steps has to do with olympic sprinting. Actually that would be more related because at least the baby uses basically the same limbs. So let's say an alien baby. The video left me feeling sad and disappointed, at a lower hedonic level than previously. I cannot conceive why 1300 separate people chose to upvote the video. Unless perhaps they only watched the clip of the robot sprinting into the air. Which was cool the first time. But not the following ten times.