Amazing Robot....MUST SEE

A company in Waltham, MA with funding from the government, has created this incredible machine. Check it out.

www.youtube.com...

I'd love to hear some ideas of possible uses for this machine.......

P.S. How incredible is the balance and recovery that the machine exhibits?

Simply amazing technology.

Few examples here

Boston Dynamics Big Dog (new video March 2008)

Yeah thanks....I should of searched for it before starting a thread.

I saw it in the Boston Herald the other day and underestimated the research and journalistic (is that a word?) zeal the members of this community have, as I thought it hadn't broken into the MSM just yet.

That is so amazing...

You can kick it as hard as you can and still it won't go down.

You can let it go up a pile of bricks and it wont go down.. WOW!


Rise of the Machines people!

omg wow , that is amazing! i want one! i never heard of this robot, so thanks for the post... i think thats one step closer to having robotic pets... well thats what I'd like to see anyways, its amazing how it can balance it self when kicked and pushed

Make it 100x bigger and I use it to take over a small island nation... Thanks for showing that around; Their website shows three other robots they are working on. www.bostondynamics.com...

The Rhex is perfectly capable of maneuvering under water.

That is undoubtedly one of the scariest things ive seen on ATS so far!! Imagine that thing coming at you with a gun mounted on top- not a lightweight adversary by any means!

They seem to have modelled it closely on a dog's biomechanics of motion. The movement is incredibly biological looking when you take into account the fact that its a machine. And the correction it makes when kicked (sticking out a leg to stop itself falling) is amazing.

I wonder if you could disable it by kicking it hard enough for it to fall on its back, maybe it wouldnt be able to get back up again then.

Don't want to be rude but that's actually quite old. I saw it on the Discovery Channel about a year or two ago. Its recovery capabilities are simply amazing.

Originally posted by watch_the_rocks
Don't want to be rude but that's actually quite old. I saw it on the Discovery Channel about a year or two ago. Its recovery capabilities are simply amazing.

Yeah like I said, I should have searched at least on ATS before starting a thread. It makes me wonder, if it's a year or two old, why was it on the cover of my hometown paper, the Boston Herald, just the other day?

I saw that the other day, looks kinda freaky.
Like a headless deer.

Amazing how well it maintains its balance when kicked and on the ice.

This technology is around ten years old. The military is usually ten to twenty five years ahead of civilian technology.

Take the Asimo Robot by Honda for example. It will be at least ten years before you can buy him in the shops for home use.

Long before that point however, Asimo will have undergone many major upgrades, and face lifts. He will probably look more human, be able to run at speeds close to or better than human running speeds - Asimo is already able to run unimpeded over a flat surface at speeds up to five miles an hour.

Already Asimo is able to complete complex tasks, such as navigating a room, and distributing drinks in a cafeteria, all without the need to be connected to a central computer for control.

Now also factor in the fact that Asimo is being developed by a civilian organisation, with a relatively minute civilian budget.... compare this to the military and the massive budgets they get for research and development, and you can only dream of the kinds of technologies that lay behind closed doors.

This robot is something we should be very wary of. Not only is it agile, but this video is at least two years old (from what I understand). There will have obviously been a lot of development and refinement since the day the video was made.

As a previous poster has already suggested: What if this thing were coming at you with a machine gun mounted atop of it?

How would you deal with an enemy like this?

The military is developing all manner of wierd and strange weaponry... we should be concerned.

Now, I do admit that this machine could be used for peaceful operations, such as mountain rescue (taking supplies to trapped people for example), but how often do we see military developed "tools" being used peacfully?

I for one am concerned.

Lol imagine being trapped on a mountain and that thing comes to rescue ya? a bit or warning would be needed,

This reminded me of a dream a friend of mine had a few months back, he said he was at home with his wife and kids, and watching tv when his AZIMO (in the dream) came to serve drinks, after it entered the room it pulled a weapon and started shooting at him, he said it was so vividly real he would never ever buy one or visit someone who had one, he had watched I robot the night before and was playing on his mind.

It is pretty cool though i imagine it could take the place of a horse on an exploration of another world? id rather have a rover but its to big to be a dog

Cant wait for the supposed purpose to be revealed.

Suggested possible uses you ask?

Well, how about "to kill".

That is some scary stuff. I have no doubt that the current level of this
technology now has far surpassed what we are shown.

I sometimes wonder what my Grandpa would think? I have come to the conclusion some time ago, that as far as technology goes, whatever humans can dream, they can create.

I'm 38 now, and have seen alot of technological advancement in my lifetime. If you look back over time, you can see plenty of hypothetical creations featured in books and movies. Everyday it seems more and more of them become actuality.

I would love to see some sort of graph that measures this rapid techno-growth over say, the last 100 years.

Wonder what the next forty years will bring...

SkyNet anyone???

Awesome. Really reminds me of Theo Jensen and his beach-crawling automaton sculptures. I always imagined what it would be like to see robots walking across fields like they were animals... it's kind of creepy to see them in that perspective.

possible uses?

make it bigger and...




[edit on 24-3-2008 by Odessy]

reply to post by 44soulslayer


No doubt. This is simultaneously one of the coolest and creepiest things I've ever seen in a decade online. This reminds me of that killer robot whatever-it-was in that crappy movie Red Planet.

Give this thing a generation or two of development, and could you imagine having something like this chasing you down on the battlefield at 40mph with a friggin' .50 caliber strapped to its back?

hmmm very interesting indeeed !!!! I'm guessing it wont be long b4 we see some of these hunting down terrorists in the hills some where soon..... possible police devices aswell......

Kind of reminds me of some of the scary parts of the bibile.... Before too long we will have things running around that would be enough to scare the toughst men around.... That thing creeped me out..

That thing creeped me out..

yes sir that thing is freaky looking.