iRobot Develops a Hyperelastic Morphing Robot

http://jwz.livejournal.com/1104891.html

by lupin_sansei • 17 years ago

46 18 17 years ago

jwz.livejournal.com

futuremint• 17 years ago

Holy Crap. Watching that thing move scared me. I don't know why, but I just envision a swarm of them inflating and deflating and rolling after me in the dark of the night...

anigbrowl• 17 years ago

You will never leave the Village, number 6.

jballanc2• 17 years ago

Watching this, I couldn't help but think that this is the video that human historians will dig up in an attempt to figure out why their distant ancestors thought it wise to develop the robots that would eventually enslave the entire race...or maybe it was just the music selection?

donaq• 17 years ago

It's morphable, not sentient. Besides, rupturing the inflatable components will remove its morphing ability. Not exactly as resilient as T1000, wot? :p

Devilboy• 17 years ago

Skynet will work out the details

ivankirigin4• 17 years ago

Why does every robot need to bring out the crazy in people that predicts some humananity-is-doomed scenerio? Such a tired idea

DannoHung• 17 years ago

Because it is the classic science fiction story: Frankenstein.

panic• 17 years ago

In the event that robots eventually enslave the entire race, I doubt there will be any video record. It'll all be on youtube, owned by — guess who — the machines.

kwamenum86• 17 years ago

It was definitely the Apocalyptic machine-takeover music. On another note, what would a machine like this be useful for?

rocketman• 17 years ago

That machine in the video is not what we would most likely implement. Imagine robots with articulations more fine than "motor1, turn 39 degrees clockwise. motor2, turn 68 degrees clockwise", etc. Possibly more compact robotic limbs that better replicate natural animal movement. More precision.

johnnyb4• 17 years ago

Haha wow, I thought I'd be the only one who had flashbacks to Terminator, but I guess am not alone.

camccann• 17 years ago

Strangely, during the development of the robot, several members of the team were plagued by persistent, unexplained nightmares. An official spokesman for iRobot attributed the nightmares to high stress and said that the affected researchers were recovering on vacation. Requests to contact the researchers were rebuffed and their current location is unknown. When approached for an interview, the project director gave only the cryptic statement, "Ia! Ia! Cthulhu fhtagn!"

No firm date has been set for commercial release of products using this technology, a spokesman giving only a figurative release date of "when the stars are right". However, he assured us, that it would "definitely be... soon."

jackcheng• 17 years ago

Reminds me of the work of Japanese artist Mio I-zawa, who makes things like "mechanical tumors" that grow in size based on your CPU load:

http://www.pinktentacle.com/2009/09/mechanical-tumor-externa...

iRobot Develops a Hyperelastic Morphing Robot

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