The Murata Seisaku-kun robot wants to ride his bicycle

Well at least it's good to know that when robots take over the earth they won't all be driving around in a bunch of road hogging cars. The "Murata Seisaku-kun" robot being built by Murata Manufacturing in Japan can get around on his very own bicycle; pedaling along at the nauseatingly slow pace of 1.24 miles an hour. He can follow pre-programmed paths and has a sensor to track which way he's leaning and adjust the handlebars accordingly — too bad he won't be going fast enough to steer it over any sweet jumps. The robot is actually so skilled at biking slow that he can maintain his upright position even while stopped due to a rotating disk built into his belly, which would've sure come in handy back when we used to race the neighbor kids to see who could bike the slowest. On the other hand, we're sure glad we didn't have to learn how to ride on a freaking balance beam like poor Murata seems to be doing.

[Via The Raw Feed]

[QUANTUMPHYSICS - XboxLive @ Dec 19th 2005 2:31AM]

Robots riding their bikes around at 2 oclock in the morning while selling crystal meth - always on the lookout for the po po'.

[happy gilmore @ Dec 19th 2005 2:31AM]

i, for one, welcome our new super-slow bicycle-riding robot overlords

[Matt @ Dec 19th 2005 2:31AM]

Nice Napoleon Dynamite reference

[Atrix @ Dec 19th 2005 2:31AM]

Don't forget the Queen reference in the title.

[Lohgan @ Dec 19th 2005 2:31AM]

Sweet rims on that ride.

[fever @ Dec 19th 2005 2:31AM]

The rims are pretty sweet, but if the 'bots got spinners, why not the bike?

f

[Tupper @ Dec 19th 2005 2:31AM]

umm, why not just build a robot with wheels?

[lrhb @ Dec 19th 2005 2:31AM]

#7, because a robot with wheels wouldn't be nearly scary enough.

Please see "The Uncanny Valley"
http://www.arclight.net/~pdb/nonfiction/uncanny-valley.html

[Google Nazi @ Dec 19th 2005 2:31AM]

DAMN YOU!!! I have that bicycle song by queen stuck in my head now! I couldn't read the article because it was a continuous loop! DAMN YOU ENGADGET DAMN YOU!!!!!

[Fritz @ Dec 19th 2005 2:31AM]

That is freakin' cool. Too bad it cheats with the internal gyro. Cyclists with skills can trackstand pretty much indefinitely. At alleycat competitions these guys see who can trackstand the longest no-handed or with one foot off and so forth.

[Erik @ Dec 19th 2005 2:31AM]

@10 You can only trackstand like that on a fixed wheel bicycle, which most cyclists (even good ones) don't have due to their extreme impracticaliy.

[Brian @ Dec 19th 2005 2:31AM]

You don't have to be riding a fixie to be able to do a trackstand well, but it comes in handy for those backwards circles. :)

[A.Formal'sky @ Dec 19th 2005 2:31AM]

See the following publications:
1. Beznos A.V., Formal�sky A.M., Gurfinkel E.V.,
Jicharev D.N., Lensky A.V., Savitsky K.V.,
Tchesalin L.S.
Control of Autonomous Motion of Two-Wheel
Bicycle with Gyroscopic Stabilization.
Proc. of the 1998 IEEE Int. Conf. on Robotics
and Automation. Leuven, Belgium � May 1998,
pp. 2670-2675.

[A.Formal'sky @ Dec 19th 2005 2:31AM]

See also:
2. Lensky A.V., and Formal�sky A.
Two-Wheel Robot-Bicycle with a Gyroscopic
Stabilizer.
Journal of Computer and Systems Sciences
International, 2003. No. 3. pp. 482-489.
3. Lensky A.V., and Formal�sky A.M.
Gyroscopic Stabilization of Two-Wheel
Robot-Bicycle.
Doklady Mathematical Sciences,
(Russian version: Doklady of Russian Academy
of Sciences), 2004, V. 399, No. 3, pp. 319-324.
4. Beznos А.V., Grishin A.A., Lensky A.V.,
Okhotsimsky D.E., Formal�sky A.M.
A Pendulum Controlled by a Flywheel.
Doklady Mathematical Sciences, 2003. 68. 5/2
(Russian version: Doklady of Russian Academy
of Sciences. 2003. V. 392. No. 6. pp. 743-749).