4 ms·
Mimicking an Elephant Trunk
- h2odragon 2y ago> why does it have to have so many other muscles, and when are those used? Elephants aren't just controlling the direction of the trunk, but the diameter of the interior tube in several "chambers" up and down, tho. They pump water, they must be. Tapir tools are worth study for much the same reasons. Harder to write a research grant proposal there.
- gumby 2y agoShades of the 1968 Minsky tentacle arm: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuXQPdd0hjI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuXQPdd0hjI It had 12 joints, though each had a hydraulic actuator rather than a tendon mechanism (i.e. not three muscles lke this model). But as an undergraduate he had fiddled with the actuation of arthropod joints and claws: https://cyberneticzoo.com/underwater-robotics/1968-minsky-bennett-arm-marvin-minsky-and-bill-bennett-american/ https://cyberneticzoo.com/underwater-robotics/1968-minsky-be...
- Animats 2y agoSnake robots aren't that hard to make. The Tesla auto charger demo was a good idea.[1] People thought it was creepy, but it's much simpler mechanically than other ways of doing the same thing. The snake part is just disks with cables through them. The motors are all in the base. So the part that might get damaged can be made easily replaceable. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWXIZMtxB6Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWXIZMtxB6Q
- ameliaquining 2y ago> He says that the important result is in “reducing the biological complexity to three degrees of freedom.” I was expecting that someone would reference the famous von Neumann quote.