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World’s largest exoskeleton mech suit inspires a new sport
- solardev 4y agoHmm, gotta say I was imagining some sort of exo-triathlon, not... crab-walking? Spider-driving?
- HankB99 4y agoCompetition will certainly deliver greater speed. I wonder about a couple things. 1) How do you define what is a mech? Would a mech with something that rolls along the ground qualify? It seems like that's the quickest/easiest way to gain speed. 2) How can you protect the fans? A search of "monster truck kills spectators" finds a lot of incidents. I didn;t count. I suppose appropriate rules could solve either of these, hopefully w/out bloodshed.
- solardev 4y agoNothing wrong with that they built. Seems like it'd be a cool thing to bring to Burning Man. It just wouldn't quite qualify as what I'd consider a "sport"... it's not much fun to watch this thing lumbering around like a dying crustacean.
- tanseydavid 4y agoNASCAR manages to pull in spectators though.
- solardev 4y agoNow, if they combined the two... had this thing chasing itty-bitty cars around a closed track, eating whatever it catches... THAT, I'd pay money to watch.
- sandworm101 4y agoBeen done. Truckasaurus was essentially a mech atop a truck chassis and could pick up cars. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1KsTWegnOs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1KsTWegnOs
- Maursault 4y agoTruckasaurus feels very badly about what happened.[1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bP3mhnDlIkM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bP3mhnDlIkM
- solardev 4y agoWhy can't every race be like this? NASCAR, Tour de France, the Olympics... the sports world just generally needs more fire-breathing mechs.
- iancmceachern 4y agoThere is a YouTube video from megaprojects about how mechs are actually pretty bad war machines. I suspect it's similar for sports. A wheeled, tracked, or flying vehicle of similar size, weight and cost is always superior. It's just a fundamentally inefficient way to go about building and locomoting a machine.
- Aeolun 4y ago> It's just a fundamentally inefficient way to go about building and locomoting a machine. Since humans are built the way they are, this can’t actually be true right?
- jamiek88 4y agoOf course it can be true. It’s basically impossible for nature to evolve wheeled locomotion, and we aren’t machines. Are you suggesting we are optimal? We aren’t even very efficient or physically fast or powerful for an evolved natural being never mind a machine. If we didn’t have the brains we have we’d be just another ape. A weak one at that. That’s just one example. Ain’t no birds going Mach 4.
- richk449 4y ago> It’s basically impossible for nature to evolve wheeled locomotion, and we aren’t machines. Perhaps true. As a fun side note, Phillip Pullman imagines a way in the His Dark Materials series.
- senkora 4y agoHere’s my favorite illustration of the Mulefa (creature in question) for context: https://twitter.com/Sherowkey/status/316271383019659264 https://twitter.com/Sherowkey/status/316271383019659264
- Aeolun 4y ago> Are you suggesting we are optimal? I’m suggesting we are extremely adaptive. We’re not fantastic at anything, but we can do basically everything.
- bilsbie 4y agoWhat’s holding us back on exo skeletons anyway? The idea shave been around for decades? I’d guess power sources? Small enough actuators? Or is it just really difficult for a human to control?
- MonkeyMalarky 4y agoPower to weight ratios?
- dane-pgp 4y ago^ This, particularly when viewed in terms of the square-cube law. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square%E2%80%93cube_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square%E2%80%93cube_law
- sandworm101 4y agoLack of any real market for them. In any industrial application, a human driving a forklift is way more efficient than someone given superman strength via an exosuit. There are some niche military applications such as rapidly loading a truck by hand, piling sandbags and such. Replacement or supplementing the function of damaged limbs is another niche, but that isn't much of a market. Everyone wants one but nobody expects to jog to work in one, as opposed to any number of other vehicle options. I read once about a Japanese exosuit powered by compressed air. The market they were targeting was elder care. Using compressed air meant you could assist/lift elderly people around water without worry.
- ShredKazoo 4y agoHow about current wheelchair users who would like to go hiking?
- datameta 4y agoIn fact there are a number of invisible disabilities that take away a person's ability to hike. I was inspired to start 3D-printing with the goal of developing a lower body exoskeleton using "exotic" filaments that would make the suit less bulky, more rugged, and longer lasting than the admittedly amazing prototypes I've seen made of PLA.
- myself248 4y agoI had high hopes for Megabots, but it was pretty anticlimactic to watch. There's potential here, but nobody's unlocked the formula yet.
- dmix 4y agoI guess it could be like watching kids scorer vs pros. There will be a long period of growing pains. With people inside the bots the amount of actual combat damage would be very limited. Probably why racing or robot skill-test courses make more sense.
- ASalazarMX 4y agoIt could easily be remote controlled, but you lose the whole mecha appeal. Also, the damage needs to be controlled, otherwise the repairs would be too expensive. Feels more like entertainment wrestling than mecha fights.
- dom96 4y agoOff-topic but TIL that TVP (a polish TV network) has an international news channel https://tvpworld.com/51656539/our-stream https://tvpworld.com/51656539/our-stream
- Kwpolska 4y ago(a Polish state-owned government propaganda broadcaster*)
- baxtr 4y agoI am bit worried about Poland’s push to restrict media. Isn’t that exactly what we’re fighting for in Ukraine? A system where many opinions can co-exist.
- kevin_thibedeau 4y agoNo. If it was, something would have been done about the Crimea invasion. Ukraine is a proxy war to weaken a problematic dictator.
- PhasmaFelis 4y agoI was going to say, what, you think the US somehow forced Putin to invade against his will? But then I remembered that there are, somehow, people who actually do believe that.
- jamiek88 4y agoNo, they are fighting for literal survival.
- lo_zamoyski 4y ago> I am bit worried about Poland’s push to restrict media. That misrepresents the issue, though it was reported that way abroad. A couple points… The law in question restricts how much foreign investment and ownership there can be in any given media company in Poland. 80% of media in Poland are foreign owned (the majority are in German hands). Imagine if Russia controlled 80% of American media. In Poland’s case, it is also struggling with its own status as a de facto vulnerable neocolonial possession, something Poles would rather not be, especially given their history the last couple of centuries. Indeed, a major cause of the weakening and fall of Poland in the 18th century was foreign meddling and the alliances made by warring political factions with foreign powers who played them off each other. The media company that became a symbol of opposition to this law is TVN which is owned by the American company Discovery Inc. and notoriously pro-opposition and pro-status quo w.r.t. Poland’s status of subordination (the ruling party has no such corporate/foreign backing). So it’s not surprising that the American corporate media would mispresent the nature of this law to Americans in line with thosee corporate interests. The very notion that corporate and foreign media are free of the interests that own and fund them is rather amusing. Mind you, the internet isn’t censored, so Poles are free to follow both the many domestic and foreign media outlets critical of the ruling party at their pleasure, and this is good. And with respect to state media, it is the state media and no pretense is made about it being otherwise. Whenever the ruling party changes, so does the management at TVP.
- jollofricepeas 4y agoI wish him well, but.. The market for this is Japan. If he can make it happen there, then exoskeleton sports can potentially make it anywhere, no? Who doesn’t love a little lite mecha action.
- 0x08 4y agoI wish TVP would have pointed out that he effectively build a strandbeest that can be driven by a person inside the strandbeest. still really cool. Normally these are self propelled https://www.strandbeest.com/ https://www.strandbeest.com/
- jbverschoor 4y agoMech warrior
- Andrew_nenakhov 4y agoWho wants mecha-racing? We need mecha-fighting league, One Must Fall 2097-style [0], or Robot Jox [1] style! [0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Must_Fall:_2097 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Must_Fall:_2097 [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robot_Jox https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robot_Jox
- orzig 4y agoI’ve got you: https://youtube.com/c/megabotsinc https://youtube.com/c/megabotsinc They only did one real fight, but still 190k followers
- dmix 4y agohttps://youtu.be/Z-ouLX8Q9UM https://youtu.be/Z-ouLX8Q9UM Direct link
- kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 4y agoRobot Jox is a great bad movie. I love it.
- pezezin 4y agoEverytime someone mentions OMF 2097, the intro song starts playing in my head. Good god was that game fantastic!
- Andrew_nenakhov 4y agoIt is probably the best fighting game ever made. No focus on mashing keys, like in Mortal Kombat, but more on outsmarting the opponent.
- walrus01 4y agoWhen I saw "Canadian-born artist and..." I thought about the guy who made a "bear proof" suit many years ago. https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=troy+hurtubise https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=troy+hurt...
- lsllc 4y agoThe Hacksmith visited these guys as part of their Aliens Power loader project, which is pretty awesome in it's own right. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3xtVxPWf6M&t=30s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3xtVxPWf6M&t=30s Power loader project playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbncXbXlaNQdAcrYvZGGPIPuw4Q8c36dW https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbncXbXlaNQdAcrYvZGGP...
- iepathos 4y ago"Racing" is the wrong way to go with this. This thing is not fast compared to actual race cars. It would fit far better in a trashy new monster truck smash setting.
- kjkjadksj 4y agoI’m hoping by the time I’m senile I could just sit in a mech suit and run everywhere
- fnordpiglet 4y agoI for one welcome our new tetrapod exoskeleton overlords.
- smegsicle 4y agolooks like one of those wind-powered walkers
- paulpauper 4y agoNot really an exoskeleton . Doesn't an exoskeleton attach around the limbs? anyway looks interesting i guess
- reshie 4y agoi know right looks more like a vehicle. we sit in a car and operate it but do not call it a exoskeleton. i think a true exoskeleton is something that accentuates our form to improve how we can physically do something. i think alien(the movie) has a good image of a exoskeleton basically a fork truck in effect that can move things though.
- pbhjpbhj 4y agoAvatar 1 shows military use of exoskeletons. At least they're upper-body exoskeletons to my recollection, I think the lower-body parts are humanoid legs but with vehicular type controls (ie you don't have to move your legs to move the "exosuits" legs.
- olodus 4y agoLooks more like a strandbeest than an exoskeleton, but sure I would be for watching some mecha sports.
- Quindecillion 4y agoWhere is the line drawn between "exoskeleton" and "vehicle"?
- pbhjpbhj 4y agoI'd say an exoskeleton amplifies body movements [of at least one limb?].
- starky 4y agoJonathan Tippett has been working on this for well over a decade at this point. They had a prototype leg when I met him in like 2011 and he was talking about this becoming a sport even then.
- _w9d6 4y agoReminds me of the film Robot Jox