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> Something with "hundreds of tiny feet" either has to slide or "walk." IIRC the Neal Stephenson version was tiny feet mounted on wheels - not walking or slidi
by MagnumOpus 7y ago
> Something with "hundreds of tiny feet" either has to slide or "walk."
IIRC the Neal Stephenson version was tiny feet mounted on wheels - not walking or sliding but rolling. But better than rubber pneumatics at evening out curbs or other obstacles.
- dmix 7y agoSounds more like legs than feet...
- PhasmaFelis 7y agoFor the record, Stephenson's skateboard smartwheels used a bunch of little pads mounted on telescoping spokes instead of a solid wheel. The board had a terrain-scanning laser mounted in the nose, and pulled the spokes in and out so that the wheel was perfectly shaped for the contours of whatever it was about to roll over; you can ride a smartwheel board down stairs as smoothly as you would a ramp. But they were still very much wheels. There was no walking motion involved.
- cr0sh 7y agoTo me, I envisioned them as being a wheel made with a bunch of shock-absorber leg-like "spokes" with feet. They seemed similar to old-tech Pedrail wheels: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedrail_wheel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedrail_wheel I think something like them has been made - but instead of the spokes ending in "feet" - they instead were encircled by a rubber deformable tread; Tweels are another interesting style of this technology, and simpler mechanically: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tweel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tweel