New Ball Prototype

http://blog.gearbox.me/prototype/new-ball-prototype/

by chaostheory • 16 years ago

62 23 16 years ago

blog.gearbox.me

run4yourlives3• 16 years ago

Cool... but here's how my evil military trained mind works.

1. "Ball" has core of C4, surrounded by wire, etc. (i.e. it's a grenade with a bigger bang)

2. Add increased range.

3. Add ability to "bounce" (for stairs, etc)

4. Add firing mechanism.

You now have a movable, controllable grenade. Ideal use: Room clearance. Turn ball on, roll into target room, bounce to waist height, activate.

You could easily modify this with CS gas or such for lower lethality options.

sdurkin• 16 years ago

Add acoustic sensors to triangulate enemy positions, coordinate with aerial surveillance, add ability for aerial drop to be deployed across battlefield, add control moment gyros to allow it traverse difficult terrain.

You could have them roll back to a base point for self-charging. To make them airborne you could embed the standard model in a quad-rotor "collar" and use the rolling mechanism for avionics and control. Really, you could base a whole micro-UAV/UGV system around some version of this concept.

lotusleaf19872• 16 years ago

You guys should've patented your ideas, but now Raytheon or someone is going to do it. ;) I'm just pulling your leg, DARPA patented it years ago.

bkudria• 16 years ago

Oh this is some great brainstorming. All these components need care and maintenance as well, so instead of having specialized cleaners for every component, I propose a "kitchen sink" component.

Yeah, that should definitely go in.

evilduck• 16 years ago

http://diydrones.com/

I've seen the Arduino drone guys report they've been able to land within 6m of their target. Not perfect, but considering the whole shebang is built by hobbyists for a couple hundred dollars, I'll excuse them.

adin• 16 years ago

Well. Speed is absolutely essential during CQB, sometimes to the point where a grenade is to slow. Grenades with PETN are already powerful enough. Especially during room clearing, when you don't want penetration through the walls. I don't think it's a very good fit.

run4yourlives3• 16 years ago

Grenades have the disadvantage of having to be thrown, which means you need a guy standing close to a wall, which is why you don't want penetration.

FIBUA has the unfortunate tendency to produce a good number of casualties because of the requirement to get close. Anything that increases standoff range therefore, can reduce casualties.

Using something like this, you could "clear" a house one room at a time without actually setting foot in it. Use three or four in quick succession for each room. Even though you'd still need occupation via human to ultimately be victorious, the need to avoid the initial assault into prepared defenses will be a godsend.

cma• 16 years ago

If the weapons are truly smart, who has any use for an omni-directional blast like a grenade? Keeping with the ball form, it is more likely it would hop and shoot tiny bullets into the forehead of everyone in the room; it could use the same exact tech that cameras now use to auto-focus on faces (until everyone started wearing decoy faces, ala numerous examples in the animal kingdom).

One "Little Boy"'s tonnage worth of gun-toting quadricopters dropped on a busy city would probably result in more deaths than Little Boy itself did.

(the world is pushing heavily in these directions; scary stuff)

die_sekte• 16 years ago

But how do you integrate guns into a ball?

evo_9• 16 years ago

Great cat toy (with or without suggested c4).

oldgregg• 16 years ago

Saw these guys at BDNT a couple days ago. Love the smart toys concept.

My dream is a personal UAV I can fly over the cell network. I want to drop my android phone into the cradle on the plane then sit back on my laptop and fly it around town, take pictures, stream video, fly it over the pentagon, etc.

NaN• 16 years ago

Something like what http://www.microdrones.com makes, then? There was a demo at it at 23C3 (http://events.ccc.de/congress/2006/Fahrplan/events/1402.en.h...) and someone made an open-source UAV control system and demo'd it at 24C3 (http://events.ccc.de/congress/2007/Fahrplan/events/2225.en.h...)

joshwa• 16 years ago

Previously: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1475336

(run4yourlives see my comment there ;) )

run4yourlives3• 16 years ago

hehe... great minds and whatnot.

</drevil>

eduardoflores• 16 years ago

How can this be better than playing with the ball with, say, your hands? your feet? Maybe I'm getting old

nooneelse• 16 years ago

Tele-Ball (or BallTime in Apple-speak). Hook the movements of two such balls together via a phone call so widely separated people can enjoy the bonding power of play.

sabj• 16 years ago

I really really like it.

I also have scary thoughts thinking about how an innocent robotics company can end up like iRobot... not that that's such a bad thing of itself :) Roombas and military killing machines, woo.

perplexes• 16 years ago

http://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/http://blog.gearbox.me/

lotusleaf19872• 16 years ago

Seriously one of the coolest gadgets I've seen, I can't wait to buy these for people.

noonespecial• 16 years ago

There seem to be two kinds of people. The first, when presented with this technology immediately think about weapons, the second, cats.

I'm a cat person for whatever that's worth.

todayiamme• 16 years ago

Wow.

If any of the guys who designed it are around; if it's possible can you please explain how it works?

Do you have a plastic sphere with 2 racks inscribed on it inside with a central assembly that has the motors and shifts the COG? Or is it something more beautiful than that?

gearboxian• 16 years ago

It's really rather simple. We'll be posting more info soon! Sign up for our news at gearbox.me (I swear I don't spam).

~Ian

ElbertF• 16 years ago

Great for playing golf.

New Ball Prototype

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