Tree Climbing Robot

galactic grub writes "New Scientist's new Tech Blog has an article about a remarkable, if slightly creepy, tree-climbing robot being developed by robotics experts from Carnegie Mellon and several other US Universities. The article comes complete with a video clip of it going up several different surfaces."

Kill them now...

[Boss, Pointy Haired]

while you still can.

Awesome!

[roman_mir]

This is a wonderful robot, I think we should have them everywhere just for the heck of it - climbing towers, trees, buildings, bridges, just running around everywhere. Man, that is a GREAT IDEA. We need more climbing robots.

Is your time worth $2700 a minute?

[Anonymous Coward]

It would be nice if submitters would warn people when Flash is required so those of us who don't bother with that nonsense wouldn't waste our time.

I opened up the article, and read the brief blurb -- about 45 seconds.

I clicked on the YouTube link in the article, and saw the little Flashblock icon. I closed the window. Time -- about 5 seconds.

Are you really that upset that you lost less than a minute? Your stress level must be through the roof if you're so busy that you can't lose a minute, less than 5 seconds of which are actually spent identifying the Flash video.

Re:Still can't beat the japanese

[MaWeiTao]

Why exactly do you say that?

Sure Japanese have developed some impressive robots, but I wouldn't call something like the ballroom dancing robot a great feat of technology. Japanese designers seem to go for flashy robots, putting immense effort in creating something that has little practical utility but creates quite a stir. One company developed a humanoid robot and then we see dozens of companies cloning the original concept.

The ones developed in the US and Europe tend to be developed for real world applications. They don't look pretty, but they get the job done, solving a specific challenge in the process.

Not to discredit what the Japanese are doing, as they certainly are innovating too, but there's no reason to put down this work just because it doesn't look like Honda's ASIMO.

Re:Still can't beat the japanese

[bermudatriangleoflov]

They seem to make useless ones, however. An example being a robot that kicks a soccer ball or plays ping pong. Thats great and all, but a robot that can:

1. Disarm a bomb
2. Climb a tree
3. Drive cross country without a driver
4. Recognize the expressions on a human face

all seem to have more real world applications and were developed right here in the US. Real world applications will drive the technology and funding for practical and useful robots IMO.

Follow up

[BecomingLumberg]

Any kid knows that getting up is easy, but getting down is much harder. How have they faired on that?

how?

[Anonymous Coward]

how the hell are they sticking to the surface?

Re:Still can't beat the japanese

[PitaBred]

So, the AI lessons in making a robot react CORRECTLY to a ping-pong ball have absolutely no relationship to things like #3? They're solving 'problems' while gaining massive leaps in understanding. Even if their end result isn't immediately useful, the lessons they learn from it are.

Re:Still can't beat the japanese

[Anonymous Coward]

You are kidding, right? Think about the movement required for a SIX-legged robot to climb a tree and the kind of AI you'd need for this to occur. Now, keeping that in mind, go see Asimo run.

This kind of nonsense shouldn't be tagged insightful.

Re:Would you rather it be QuickTime or WMV?!

[vertinox]

It would be nice if submitters would warn people when Flash is required so those of us who don't bother with that nonsense wouldn't waste our time.

What the heck do you want it in?

Chances are if it is flash, it is more compatible than Quicktime or WMV. I don't like installing Quicktime on my PC and forget the WMV player on my mac (yeah there is one but it hardly works).

Maybe some obscure codec no one has heard of that requires a download, then?

Seriously what do you use for your videos?

I bet half the people that look at the page do not use that format. Heck... I've got Flash installed on Ubuntu and good luck with WMV files on a Linux box. I've never tried Quicktime, but I'm sure the effort to install it on Ubuntu isn't worth it just to see some video download.

Re:Still can't beat the japanese

[Schmendr1ck]

Actually, I *would* call a ballroom dancing robot technologically impressive. It is very difficult to accurately mimic human physiology and movement in a robot. We consider walking on two legs to be simple (and for most people it is), but it is very challenging to develop robust bipedal movement in an artificial system, either real-world or simulated.

The difference between a bomb-disarming robot and a ballroom dancing robot is that the former is focused on practicality, while the latter is focused on showcasing innovative technology in a non-practical (and arguably whimsical) manner.