4 ms·

I disagree. Centipedes and other many-legged critters can move very fast. Every leg is just a tiny lightweight thing with its own balanced dynamics, just a part

I disagree. Centipedes and other many-legged critters can move very fast. Every leg is just a tiny lightweight thing with its own balanced dynamics, just a part of a wheel basically. First thing that came to my mind is a plastic brush with flexible back. If you move a rollers along the back the bristles extend downwards and move backwards in a walking motion, just like a sea urchin does. Scale that and you have a walking machine moving amazingly fast. Tiny bristles yield and conform to any surface.

krapp 7y ago
You're not taking inertia and friction into account. Centipedes appear to move very fast because they're small relative to us and lightweight - at scale, they don't move very fast. But if you take a centipede and scale it up to the size of a train (square cube law notwithstanding), it would just be a very slow train-sized centipede. To make it faster, you would have to make its legs longer, because legs are levers.
timonoko 7y ago
I found such a brush with flexible back (from a broken sauna brush). Amazing discovery: If you move the said roller forward along the back the bristles make the walking movement backwards. Need to make room for the Nobel prize now.
Qworg 7y ago
CWU's "whegs" are much in this vein: http://biorobots.case.edu/projects/whegs/ http://biorobots.case.edu/projects/whegs/
- cr0sh 7y ago
  I could also see Brook's Genghis platform being extended to "centipede" multiples of legs and probably working well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genghis_Robot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genghis_Robot EDIT: fixed mistake - put "Dante" but meant Genghis...
magduf 7y ago
>Centipedes and other many-legged critters can move very fast. Can they? Humans have legs too, but they aren't very fast at all. I can easily outrun any human on my bicycle. The main advantage for legs is dealing with rough terrain. I can hike over/through extremely rough terrain that I would never dream of taking a bike on. But for speed, nothing beats wheels on a smooth surface. You can't have both.

krapp 7y ago

You're not taking inertia and friction into account. Centipedes appear to move very fast because they're small relative to us and lightweight - at scale, they don't move very fast. But if you take a centipede and scale it up to the size of a train (square cube law notwithstanding), it would just be a very slow train-sized centipede. To make it faster, you would have to make its legs longer, because legs are levers.

timonoko 7y ago

I found such a brush with flexible back (from a broken sauna brush). Amazing discovery: If you move the said roller forward along the back the bristles make the walking movement backwards. Need to make room for the Nobel prize now.

Qworg 7y ago

CWU's "whegs" are much in this vein: http://biorobots.case.edu/projects/whegs/ http://biorobots.case.edu/projects/whegs/

cr0sh 7y ago
I could also see Brook's Genghis platform being extended to "centipede" multiples of legs and probably working well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genghis_Robot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genghis_Robot EDIT: fixed mistake - put "Dante" but meant Genghis...

magduf 7y ago

>Centipedes and other many-legged critters can move very fast. Can they? Humans have legs too, but they aren't very fast at all. I can easily outrun any human on my bicycle. The main advantage for legs is dealing with rough terrain. I can hike over/through extremely rough terrain that I would never dream of taking a bike on. But for speed, nothing beats wheels on a smooth surface. You can't have both.