Do it Yourself Mecha...

[roseembolism]

Courtesy of Wired, comes the story of the man who, to raise interest in robotics, is building a real-world giant robot.  Well, he's actually building a real-world "kind of medium size" bot, but he did come up with plans for a 60' one.

So why am I, who is known as a major critic of the idea of giant robots, posting this?  Mainly for the poster- which shows some of the complexity inherent in a giant robot: if you're having to have seven gas turbines and 30 superconducting motors is necessary just to start getting the thing to move, then it might just be easier to go with a tank.

Comments

[kazuhiko04.livejournal.com]

Way back in '06 (the good old days) someone had a walking (or at least shuffling) robot: http://kazuhiko04.livejournal.com/39185.html

I think it was Terry Pratchett who said that the first one to scale a mountain needs to be at their physical peak and prepare for months. Soon afterwards, grannies will be visiting the peak for lunch and going back in the afternoon because they forgot their glasses.

The first one to do something always has it hard, but I'm sure we'll get there because, hey, walking robots are cool.