Robot Aims To Walk On Water

qeorqe writes "CMU researchers are developing a robot that runs across water (PDF). It is modeled after the basilisk lizard, which has that rare ability. The researchers have done both computer simulations and experiments with test models."

I Bet It Sinks

[UncleWilly]

But if it doesn't, will other roots begin to worship it?

Re:I Bet It Sinks

[Anonymous Coward]

But if it doesn't, will other roots begin to worship it?

It will first have to convert DC into AC and perform a hard reboot.

No! It should be...

[Gription]

48 61 6C 6C 65 6C 75 6A 61 68

Re:

[Scaba]

I think it would be 01001000011000010110110001101100011001010110110001 110101011010100110000101101000.

Bender: Ahhh, what an awful dream. Ones and zeroes everywhere... and I thought I saw a two.
Fry: Don't worry Bender, there's no such thing as two.

Re:

[ShieldW0lf]

Canadian Loons do this too. They can't take off without speed, so they run across the surface of the lake until they're going fast enough.

I used to sit around watching them when I was a kid. Funny as hell when they're tearing across the lake like the devils on their tail, then they trip over a wave, face plant and disappear.

Re:

[Gription]

I think it would be 01001000011000010110110001101100011001010110110001 110101011010100110000101101000.

Canadian Loons do this too. They can't take off without speed, so they run across the surface of the lake until they're going fast enough.

I used to sit around watching them when I was a kid. Funny as hell when they're tearing across the lake like the devils on their tail, then they trip over a wave, face plant and disappear.

Loons speak binary? But they don't have enough MHZ to process it unless they run?

I think you might be a confused loon... (and I don't think you can speak binary no matter how fast you run.

Re:

[bfischer]

What is this root worship of which you speak?

Re:

[KiloByte]

God, root... What's the difference?

Re:I Bet It Sinks

[vigmeister]

God's password is his birthday - that's why he encrypted the origin of the Universe.

Cheers!

Re:

[vigmeister]

It is if you don't know the format...

Cheers!

Re:

[Evilest Doer]

God, root... What's the difference?

Ray, if somebody asks you if you're a Root, you say "Yes"!

Re:

[Danny Rathjens]

You took out the Russian accent. :)

<sfx origin="Pitr's keyboard" "tap tap">
<voice origin="Mike" "I swear you must think you're some kind of god.">
<sfx origin="Pitr's keyboard" "tappy tappy">
<voice origin="Pitr" "God, root, what is difference?">
--User Friendly

Re:

[dvice_null]

Walking on the water is easy. Just wait for the winter or find a bridge or go standing on your toilet seat.

Re:

[halcyon1234]

Actually, it's easy to walk on water if you move fast enough [imdb.com]

Re:

[d0rp]

You can also dodge bullets!

Re:

[OhHellWithIt]

Not until someone hangs it on a cross.

Re:

[kd5ujz]

And only then if it reboots three days later.

Re:

[Trent Hawkins]

Japan already has such a robot [engrish.com]

Already done

[Ohreally_factor]

Bah! Apple has already built a phone that can walk on water. This is just a phone with arms and legs.

Re:

[MECC]

Actually, someone tried, and the iPhone can't walk on water. [arstechnica.com]

Re:

[ArsenneLupin]

From that article:

Naturally, if you drop an iPhone anywhere in publicon the street, in an office, etc.you run the risk of someone stepping on the phone.

Or more likely: of someone stealing it...

oooh

[iamdrscience]

Remember Christ? He's back! In robot form!

Re:

[weicco]

I thought just the same. How is this even on Slashdot? This is obviously 2007 year old dupe! Hardly newsworthy...

Re:

[alx5000]

So if I'm drowning will I finally get to cry "Save me, Jebus"???

Re:

[midwestnets]

Strange that he would come back in robot form and his mom would come back in shark form. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/05/07 0524-shark-virgin.html [nationalgeographic.com]

Re:oooh

[somersault]

You could at least do the meme thingy justice..

I [important]for one[/important] will be the first to welcome our new hydroplanetic cyberlizard overlords

Re:

[streetphantom]

I must be new here.

Re:

[rekked]

Isn't the Galactic Pope a lizard itself?

Re:

[GammaKitsune]

Crocodylus Pontifex

Basilisk

[Enderandrew]

The robot also turns you to stone, but don't fear. Harry Potter will slay it with a sword.

Basilisks are dangerous...

[meringuoid]

... but there are worse things. Cockatrices, for instance. Handle with care. Extreme care.

Because rooster eggs are so common?

[blueZ3]

Face it, basilisks (born from a rooster's egg hatched by a serpent) are an endangered species. If Harry Potter kills one, that would definitely spoil things. :-)

Re:

[GammaKitsune]

Potter killed it, Mal. Killed it with a sword. How weird is that?

neat trick.

[apodyopsis]

its a neat trick, but are there any commercial applications?

where does a robot that walks on water succeed over an autonomous boat?

I mean, at least when they developed the technological equivalent of the geckos foot they had very sound commercial applications in mind. As robot amphibious platforms go this has just got to be inefficient and unreliable.

Re:

[timmarhy]

so what if it doesn't? not everything is about money you realise?

It's amphibious

[Colin Smith]

where does a robot that walks on water succeed over an autonomous boat?

Course, there have been amphibious vehicles for years.

Watercross

[mdsolar]

Seems to me that they could reach their goal faster by mimicking the lizard more closely. Watercross http://www.iwausa.org/ [iwausa.org] works basically by slapping the water already. Just automate and you are there.
--
Solar power with no installation cost: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html [blogspot.com]

Re:

[mashade]

Good lord! That's the biggest block of blinking text I've seen since '99!

Text

[Kozar_The_Malignant]

Good lord! That's the biggest block of blinking text I've seen since '99!

Indeed. The op-art red text on blue background is pretty retro as well. You just don't see much of the reverse, blinking magenta text on chartreuse background thing any more...thank God.

Re:neat trick.

[Eivind]

Unknown. But the paper hypothesises that it may be possible to build robots that can move efficiently over land *and* water, using bipedal or quadroped legged walking for both. I don't think it's *that* hard to see possible applications for this. I bet the military could imagine a few, for starters. (and that tends to be a good start for robotics, lots of stuff that are today commonplace started out as military projects. Jet-planes anyone ?

Re:neat trick.

[Random Destruction]

Military indeed. I can think of few things more frightening than a motion tracking quadrupedal robot running across a river at you, guns blazing.

Re:

[Belial6]

That's what I was thinking. The terror of seeing your unfeeling, inhuman attacker run on water would be... well, terrifying. I'm thinking that it would be so shocking that if that scene were put into a sci-fi movie today, it would bet universally panned as totally unrealistic.

Re:

[geekoid]

To fire a weapon of reasonable caliber would take too much weight. I doubt this is a practical application.
Tracking, recon, autonomous small package delivery. Medical supplies, information, bombs.

Re:

[Joebert]

Basilisks have a strange sense of humor, they sometimes took the messages to the emeny during testing.

An interesting question actually

[archeopterix]

its a neat trick, but are there any commercial applications?

where does a robot that walks on water succeed over an autonomous boat?

This question becomes interesting when you point it back at the lizard. Why does it walk on water instead of just swimming? My guess is that it's energy-efficient since it only has to overcome the viscosity of the air, not water.

Re:An interesting question actually

[Anonymous Coward]

This question becomes interesting when you point it back at the lizard. Why does it walk on water instead of just swimming?

We can go further. Why does it go across water at all? Why not stay where it was born and raised, rather than pursue questionable gains across the pond? Scientists are so busy wondering whether they can get a robot to walk across water, that they forget to question whether the robot should.

Re:

[ChrisMaple]

Why does it go across water at all?

To get to the other side.

which begs the question

[Tmack]

Why does it go across water at all? Why not stay where it was born and raised, rather than pursue questionable gains across the pond? Scientists are so busy wondering whether they can get a robot to walk across water, that they forget to question whether the robot should.

Why did the robot cross the pond?

Tm

Re:

[Deliveranc3]

"Why did the Lizard Cross the Pond?"
"To get to the other side..."

That joke is NEVER getting stale :P

Re:

[UnanimousCoward]

Same reason that a dog licks its you-know-what...

Re:

[jamesh]

Of course... because it doesn't have hands!

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

To get rid of the taste of dogfood?

Re:An interesting question actually

[aadvancedGIR]

I would bet the #1 reason is that it tries to avoid being eaten by a fish.

Re:

[UbuntuDupe]

Yes, but doesn't walking on water introduce a huge inefficiency in itself? From what I remember, the reason that this lizard can walk on water is because of the surface tension, combined with the fact that it weighs so little. Surface tension can only support so much! So yes, you'd be more efficient in one respect, but you'd have to make the robots really small, limiting what they can do.

Re:

[archeopterix]

From what I remember, the reason that this lizard can walk on water is because of the surface tension, combined with the fact that it weighs so little.

I don't think that the surface tension alone is sufficient to keep the lizard above water. It's rather the speed of its feet moving downwards and the speed of its feet moving back up, before the water closes above the foot.

Re:

[SatanicPuppy]

Well, no, there are other options. You could increase the surface area of whatever part is in contact with the water, or you could increase the speed at which it makes contact.

At a sufficiently high speed water is about as solid as cement, so there is no limit to weight as long as you can make it hit the water fast/hard enough.

Re:

[White Yeti]

I've seen this "Jesus Christ Lizard" [k12.fl.us] (Google's first hit) on TV. It seems like it runs on water for only a short distance before dropping to swim, and it's using its big webbed feet to stay up rather than surface tension. It runs on the water to escape being eaten by critters on land, so it's betting the water is safer than the land.

I'm waiting for a R/C robostrider [mit.edu].

Re:

[grimdawg]

Lizards are cold-blooded, right?

My guess is that it's not too great with getting wet and keeping warm.

Re:

[archeopterix]

Lizards are cold-blooded, right?

My guess is that it's not too great with getting wet and keeping warm.

Water snakes have no such problems, but well - maybe the lizard lives at cooler waters.

Re:

[Klanglor]

Segway will buy it and sell it as the Segway2. Modern Amphibous transportation. by year 2050. wings will be added and people will mod the skin to make it look like dragons and hence the dragon riders shall be reborn. By 2075 a virus will take over all those beast and a new breed of dragon slayers will be born, armed with emp guns. imagine all the $$$$$$

I'm still waiting for the Car that runs on water

[willki]

The Government, man, they have this car that runs on water.

Re:

[thc69]

Oh, I see what you did there...

Re:

[jamesh]

where does a robot that walks on water succeed over an autonomous boat?

Presumably our new water walking robot overlords won't need to be as waterproof?

Re:

[CastrTroy]

I often think this same thing about all bipedal walking robots. It's neither the easiest way to make things mobile, nor does it provide the most mobility. If you're dealing with uneven terrain, something with six legs [forevergeek.com] would probably work a lot better, or if you want to cover lots of land, then something with wheels or tank track works better. I can't see two legged robots offering any serious commercial applications, apart from the novelty of having something that looks human. Would you rather have a rob

Re:

[MrNaz]

Dude, this is Slashdot. What the hell do you *think* everyone here wants a robot maid to do?

Re:

[TheLink]

Uh. Run Linux?

The more ambitious ones will want a beowulf cluster of robot maids.

Think about it: Robot maid clustering with high performance interconnects and NUMA[1]...

[1] Non Uniformed Maid Access?

Erm, shower time...

Re:

[mblase]

where does a robot that walks on water succeed over an autonomous boat?

Well, for starters, an autonomous boat can't walk on land.

Re:

[boyfaceddog]

Yes, by golly. I can't think of any reason why anyone would want an all terain gun platform, uh, robot.

Sorry, just can't help myself.

Re:

[ruben.gutierrez]

I think repairing autonomous boats would be a commercial application. Give the robot the ability to freely move about the entire boat (in and out of water).

If you'd like to see it...

[chub_mackerel]

Here's a video (of the lizard not the robot):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qhsxo7vY8ac [youtube.com]

Re:If you'd like to see it...

[Tomun]

Heres an even better video, driving on water:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zD0hN-96ypE [youtube.com]

Re:

[Zaatxe]

I'm not allowed to access Youtube from work, you insensitive clods!
(Although my boss got very impressed for me being eligible for mod points in Slashdot...)

Re:

[fatphil]

And the same in laboratory conditions, using a high speed camera:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVVcWafi-MU

holy robot

[Anonymous Coward]

BEDEVERE: What also floats in water?
VILLAGER:Bread!
VILLAGER:Apples!
VILLAGER:Uh, very small rocks!
VILLAGER:Mud!
VILLAGER:Uh, churches! Churches!
VILLAGER:Lead! Lead!
ARTHUR:A duck!
CROWD:Oooh.
BEDEVERE:Exactly. So, logically... if this robot float on water, then it is made of wood

Easy

[CmdrGravy]

I can already walk on water, I think these robots are a pointless abomination.

I know why

[tsa]

At first I thought: 'Cool, but why would they want to do that?' Now it's clear to me: a robot that can carry a man over water in style is very useful when suddenly you are overcome by global warming. I live in the Netherlands, and I think I will need such a machine fairly soon.

Re:

[krazo]

It's actually so we have one less means of escape when the robots take over.

They can already walk, climb stairs, drive cars and there's the one who thinks humans taste like bacon.

I'm just hoping no one invents a robot that can climb trees or all that practice in my backyard will be for nothing.

Re:

[tsa]

Sorry, but... [newscientist.com]

Re:

[tsa]

Wow I first posted the link and then watched the video. That thing looks very creepy.

learning about the lizards

[Takichi]

I encourage people to actually read the article. It breaks down the mechanics of the basilisk's run cycle quite nicely. It has some really nice images and graphs illustrating it, too. I know it's a lot to ask, but at least look at the pictures in the article! By the way, they point out that learning more about the way the basilisk actually runs on water is one of the merits of the paper.

It's all well and good, but...

[IBBoard]

It's all well and good planning on making a quadrupedal robot with the potential for it being a personnel-carrying vehicle, but what about the ride itself? Especially when it has to run on water I can't imagine it being particularly smooth (like, for example, how the basilisk they're modelling twists its body).

Re:

[CastrTroy]

Also, it's one thing to make a 70 cm, 80 gram, lizard walk on water. It's a completely different story to get a 2 metre, 4000 pound (my guess, cargo included) personel carrier to walk on water. Just getting the machine to move fast enough is going to require a whole lot of power. The feet would have to be huge, and cause lots of air resistance when trying to move them. Just because an ant can lift 50 times it's own weight, doesn't mean you can build a pickup truck that can do the same.

Re:

[Ticklemonster]

Aha! It's a non submersible martini mixer for James Bond!

Been done.

[Kurayamino-X]

Though, with wall-climbing buggies and a snowmobile, not a robot.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=-QBiBcK96Bs [youtube.com]

It had better sink..

[rockypg]

.. when it stops running. Otherwise it is a Duck, not a basilisk

Pastafarianism

[n3tcat]

Could this be the arrival of the Son of the Flying Spaghetti Monster? It was intelligently designed, after all.

It will walk on water...

[mattoo]

..but will it run on linux?

More Importantly . . .

[SpeedyGonz]

. . . Will it blend?

Re:

[PPH]

..but will it run on linux?

Of course. They tried Windows but it kept sinking in the Blue Swamp Of Death.

Obligatory Futurama Quote

[ari_j]

Fry: (to a robot at a Bot Mitzvah) So, you don't believe in Robot Jesus?

Jewish robot: We believe that he existed, and that he was a very well-built robot, but he was not our Messiah.

Yeah ...

[krou]

... but can it turn it into wine?

At least we'll be too drunk to care when they get self-replication. I, for one, *hic* ...

Wow!

[e**(i pi)-1]

Jesus!

here lizard lizard lizard

[Anonymous Coward]

A picture (since the .pdf link seems to be down at the moment):

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/photos/2006-04-05/04 06plizard-a.jpg [pittsburghlive.com]

And another link:

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_4 40639.html [pittsburghlive.com]

Robot wars...

[vigmeister]

How about a robot that parts water? Then we can have "BattleBots: Judeo-Christian Wars".

Cheers!

AOL

[NRISecretAgent]

I just got an image of the AOL/AIM guy running across water in all his yellow glory... gah!

Sweet Robot Jesus!

[Eli Gottlieb]

I showed this to my robot, and he says he might actually convert from Robot Judaism! Thank you, CMU, you've saved an electronic soul. Err... hard-disk image.

Hey! I already patented this...

[Mr. Vage]

I have the diagram to prove it. http://www.infovisual.info/05/img_en/054%20Boat.jp g [infovisual.info]

Researchers Choose Name!

[ninjapiratemonkey]

In a stunning advancement in the basilisk robot development, the researchers have decided to name this new robot the "HOVERCRAFT".

Wha?

[Tarlus]

Robot Aims To Walk On Water

...developing a robot that walks across water...

Well, which one is it? Walk or run?

Re:

[Zaatxe]

Ha! That's nothing! In Soviet Russia, water walks on YOU!