DailyDirt: Robots That Move (Sometimes In A Creepy Way)

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Thu, May 12th 2011 5:00pm — Michael Ho

There's an uncanny valley for artificially-generated images that look almost too human. And as robots become more advanced, they could also go through their own version of an uncanny valley. Here are some projects that might be creating some creepy-looking robots.

Japanese researchers have created autonomous robots roughly the size of a 7-month-old and a 13-month-old baby -- which also try to move like human babies. Baby Terminators are so cute and don't look at all threatening, do they? [url]
The GoQBot mimics a caterpillar for its method of locomotion by performing ballistic rolling. This 10-centimeter-long robot can roll away surprisingly fast when it balls up. [url]
Robots that can slither through granular materials might be useful for disaster recovery efforts. Given the fate of NASA's Mars rover Spirit, sand-swimming robots could also be useful for extraterrestrial terrains. [url]
To discover more interesting robot-related content, check out what's currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

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Filed Under: ballistic rolling, caterpillars, goqbot, robots, terminators

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Lawrence D'Oliveiro, 12 May 2011 @ 8:15pm

Creepy Robots Go Back Over Half A Century
I remember reading an old (1950s-era) book called The Living Brain, by W Grey Walter, when I was younger. This guy was a pioneer in studying brain physiology, back when the most advanced equipment available was an EEG. He also built electronic circuits to try to mimic things like conditioned reflexes. He included circuit diagrams in the book�amazing what you could do with little more than couple of vacuum tubes.

In the book he casually mentions that one of his machines was so eerily lifelike, it drove a certain woman (presumably his wife) to run upstairs and lock herself in her room.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 May 2011 @ 4:56am

Thought the caterpillar idea sounded neat until I watched the video. It's attached to a wire, and rolls like a mongo! Looks like something straight out of 1990.
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Michael Ho (profile), 13 May 2011 @ 11:06am

Re:
Early prototypes are usually attached to a wire... :P I'm sure this little robo-caterpillar will be wireless and rolling around the streets in no time.
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