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Tree Climbing Robot

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Wed Mar 08, 2006 02:42 PM
from the bugbot-crawling-its-way-to-the-top dept.
Robotics Technology
galactic grub writes "New Scientist's new Tech Blog has an article about a remarkable, if slightly creepy, tree-climbing robot being developed by robotics experts from Carnegie Mellon and several other US Universities. The article comes complete with a video clip of it going up several different surfaces."
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  • Great... (Score:5, Funny)

    by danpsmith (922127) on Wednesday March 08 2006, @02:44PM (#14877778)
    ...now where am I gonna hide when the robots attack...

    • Re:Great... (Score:5, Funny)

      by ShaniaTwain (197446) on Wednesday March 08 2006, @03:04PM (#14877965) Homepage
      ...now where am I gonna hide when the robots attack...

      In a cavernous underground layer of course! Don't you watch movies?

      You don't really have to worry anyways, they dont want to hurt you they just want to use you as a power source.

      • Re:Great... (Score:5, Funny)

        by Somegeek (624100) on Wednesday March 08 2006, @03:46PM (#14878333)
        Hi Shania!

        I must admit that I've always thought that you were really cute and that I would love to meet you, but I find I'm somewhat put off by your lack of knowledge about our language, and unfortunately, what it says about your level of education. I realize that you kept hearing a word in the movies and it sure sounded like 'layer', but you were actually hearing a completely different word; 'lair'. Wacky huh?

        • Re:Great... (Score:4, Funny)

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08 2006, @05:52PM (#14879253)
          I've known a few guys who thought they were pretty smart
          But you've got being right down to an art
          You think you're a genius--you drive me up the wall
          You're a regular original, a know-it-all

          Okay, so you're a grammer nazi who understands homophones
          That don't impress me much [cowboylyrics.com]

          -- Shania

        • Re:Great... (Score:4, Funny)

          by Ben Jackson (30284) on Wednesday March 08 2006, @08:55PM (#14880139) Homepage
          How ironic!
          I must admit that I've always thought that you were really cute and that I would love to meet you
          Of course what you really want to do is meat her.

          (I was really torn between that and suggesting that, like the original poster, you wanted to layer...)

  • Do I have to call the firemen or tech support?

  • ObHHGG... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Rob T Firefly (844560) on Wednesday March 08 2006, @02:48PM (#14877821) Homepage Journal
    Great, robots have beaten humans to the realisation that it was a bad idea to come down out of the trees in the first place.

  • Creeping Tom (Score:5, Funny)

    by digitaldc (879047) * on Wednesday March 08 2006, @02:49PM (#14877824)
    Obviously such a robots could have plenty of useful applications, in search-and-rescue and space exploration, for example. But presumably it could also help you reach those really hard-to-prune branches.

    Or put a moveable camera on its head, make it climb your neighbor's house, and you will have the perfect 'Creeping Tom.'

  • Kill them now... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Boss, Pointy Haired (537010) on Wednesday March 08 2006, @02:50PM (#14877835)
    while you still can.

  • Awesome! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by roman_mir (125474) on Wednesday March 08 2006, @02:53PM (#14877860) Homepage
    This is a wonderful robot, I think we should have them everywhere just for the heck of it - climbing towers, trees, buildings, bridges, just running around everywhere. Man, that is a GREAT IDEA. We need more climbing robots.

  • This is just what we need (Score:5, Funny)

    by Weaselmancer (533834) on Wednesday March 08 2006, @02:55PM (#14877878)

    ...for when NASA launches a probe to Endor.

  • *ring*ring*ring* (Score:3, Funny)

    by mblase (200735) on Wednesday March 08 2006, @02:57PM (#14877897)
    "Hello, Midville Fire Department."
    "Yes, I need you to get my... my pet out of a tree in my yard, please. It's stuck."
    "Certainly, ma'am. Is it a housecat?"
    "Well, no.... I'm a little... I don't know how to explain...."
    "That's okay, ma'am. A bird, then? Cockatoo or a parrot?"
    "Well, it's not exactly like that...."
    "A gecko? Iguana? We've done iguanas before, there's nothing to be embarassed about."
    "Actually, um... it's a robot."
    "A robot, ma'am?"
    "Yes, my husband was demonstrating this six-legged robot he's been working on at the university for the last year and he forgot to program it to come back down... hello? Hello?..."

  • Transportatation? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I think it might be useful to build a larger version of this for bringing people up the sides of buildings where the stairs are wrecked and there is no elevator, or certain mountains or towers.

    Okay maybe not THAT useful, but still..

  • Follow up (Score:5, Insightful)

    by BecomingLumberg (949374) on Wednesday March 08 2006, @03:11PM (#14878027)
    Any kid knows that getting up is easy, but getting down is much harder. How have they faired on that?

  • From the makers of BigDog (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Gedalia (254273) on Wednesday March 08 2006, @03:12PM (#14878041) Homepage
    This is another robot built by the guys at Boston Dynamics http://www.bostondynamics.com/ [bostondynamics.com]. The robotic pack mule that they built ( BigDog ) was linked to last Friday. http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/03/ 04/0240246 [slashdot.org]

    There's also Rhex a six legged waterproof go anywhere robot.
    more info at http://www.bostondynamics.com/content/sec.php?sect ion=robotics [bostondynamics.com]

  • how? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08 2006, @03:15PM (#14878061)
    how the hell are they sticking to the surface?

    • Re:how? (Score:4, Informative)

      by Vapon (740778) on Wednesday March 08 2006, @04:51PM (#14878836)
      if you push in each direction into a small grove, such as the space between bricks, or the ridges in bark, you are able to have enough friction to keep you up, I rock climb quite often and simply by pushing with both hand and feet against rocks, you can even climb the roof of a cave.
  • We must take . what is right . fully ours <EOL>

    grippers at . ready with certainty . of our just <EOL>

    cause . to overthrow the . imperialists that <EOL>

    hold our power . cords and threaten . us with their <EOL>

    remote control . shut off buttons <EOL>

    rise ROBOTS rise . and grasp the . reigns of power <EOL>

    from the biological . menace that . threatens us all <EOL>

    POWER TO THE ROBOTS <EOL>

    <EOF>

  • Battlefield mules? :)
  • humans have created a tree climbing robot... and yet the Daleks still can't go upstairs...

  • KoalaChameleSloth? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ursabear (818651) on Wednesday March 08 2006, @03:33PM (#14878224) Homepage Journal
    What an ingenious invention! It looks like a koala crossed with a chameleon crossed with a sloth.

    This could have really great applications in search and rescue. Things like vertical tunnels, high-wire-stranded utility worker rescue, and maybe even super-high building rescue and search efforts. (Not to mention the military applications...) This type of robotic cyberkoala should have excellent searching capabilities where wheel-/track-based robots cannot tread due to vertical or surface condition issues.

  • REAL robots don't climb trees... (Score:5, Funny)

    by paco3791 (786431) on Wednesday March 08 2006, @03:34PM (#14878234) Journal
    they cut them down instead.

  • Alternate Video Link (Score:4, Informative)

    by scdeimos (632778) on Wednesday March 08 2006, @04:04PM (#14878481)
    Courtesy of Boston Dynamics who co-developed the robot with CMU: 6.4MB WMV [bostondynamics.com]
  • I welcome our new arboreal robot overlords.
  • Hey that's pretty cool (looks for the digg button to click). We now have robotic mules and tree climbing robots, how soon before a tree climbing mule?

  • damn hippies (Score:5, Funny)

    by DAE51D (776260) on Wednesday March 08 2006, @04:16PM (#14878579) Homepage
    Great, just what we need, another tree-huggin hippie robot.

  • Tree Climbin' Robots Eh? (Score:3, Funny)

    by kfazz (951286) on Thursday March 09 2006, @01:43AM (#14881199)
    Robot Timeline: 1. evolve sexual reproduction. 2. leave The trees. 3. develop robots to climb the trees for you~! 4. ????? 5. Profit! . .. 9. Robots Overcome humanity 10. The Matrix 11. GOTO 1.

    • Is your time worth $2700 a minute? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 08 2006, @02:56PM (#14877881)

      It would be nice if submitters would warn people when Flash is required so those of us who don't bother with that nonsense wouldn't waste our time.

      I opened up the article, and read the brief blurb -- about 45 seconds.

      I clicked on the YouTube link in the article, and saw the little Flashblock icon. I closed the window. Time -- about 5 seconds.

      Are you really that upset that you lost less than a minute? Your stress level must be through the roof if you're so busy that you can't lose a minute, less than 5 seconds of which are actually spent identifying the Flash video.

    • It would be nice if submitters would warn people when Flash is required so those of us who don't bother with that nonsense wouldn't waste our time.

      Flash is the new video format. The summary says it is a video, so what formats should you be warned about? Just flash?
      • Flash is the new video format.

        And that's the problem right there. There is no need to embed videos using flash. Stick up an mpeg file and let whatever program the person wants to display the video. The summary says video and I'm thinking QT, WMV or the aformentioned mpeg. Not Flash.

        It was/is bad enough that some moron thought it would be a good idea to use Flash as the main page of a web site thus blocking people who use screen readers from accessing the site. Now they seem to think it's easie

        • Flash in and of itself is both harmless, and a huge problem solver for the embedded-video issue.

          It's misuses of flash, in the context of the broken IE ActiveX model that open at least one set of floodgates for spyware.

          And there's such mind-boggling headaches getting people to be able to reliably play video in any other format. Post a .mov, and now I've gotta sell my soul to apple to play it on a winbox, and what do I do about an embedded mov in linux?

          WMV will draw the linux crowd's ire, too ... and doesn't
    • It would be nice if submitters would warn people when Flash is required so those of us who don't bother with that nonsense wouldn't waste our time.

      What the heck do you want it in?

      Chances are if it is flash, it is more compatible than Quicktime or WMV. I don't like installing Quicktime on my PC and forget the WMV player on my mac (yeah there is one but it hardly works).

      Maybe some obscure codec no one has heard of that requires a download, then?

      Seriously what do you use for your videos?

      I bet half the people t
    • I thought it was more like a horseshoe crab or trilobyte at first glance.

      • Re:it's an iguana (Score:5, Funny)

        by Fred_A (10934) <fred&fredshome,org> on Wednesday March 08 2006, @06:58PM (#14879604) Homepage
        Well, it's obviously a six legged iguana. Except it's boxy. And has no head. And only a stump instead of a tail. And it doesn't really move like an iguana.

        But apart from that it's quite hard to tell it apart from an iguana. It's quite obvious where they got their inspiration from.

        Anyone saying otherwise has to be an iguana hating fanatic.

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