The Autotelematic Spider Bot makes little girls scream

Here we bring you the latest installment of icky spider robots – the Autotelematic Spider Bot on display at the Sunderland Museum in the UK. These 6-legged spiders can “see” and communicate with each other via audible “chirping.” At the moment, the bots are on an apparent hunger strike as they won’t stay at the “feeding station” long enough to charge, presumably due to a rift with their creator over having only instilled semi-autonomy. However, the next release of these spiders will be solar powered (and we imagine 10 feet tall!) for release into the wilds of Brazil. Hey Paulo, is that a swarm of birds coming over the horizon? Paulo!

[Via designed objects]

[wxrman Posted Mar 13th 2006 7:38AM]

Would it have been so difficult to make these arachnids have 8 legs instead of 6?

[AuroraAlpha Posted Mar 13th 2006 7:44AM]

Scream, scream, scream!

It might, it could change the entire walking system, because right now the center legs look like they balance it, if you have 2 sets of center legs they then have to 'work together'.

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 13th 2006 8:09AM]

No problem - just call them "bugs" instead of "spiders"

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 13th 2006 10:26AM]

Next... they start to reproduce automatically. Haven't I seen this somewhere? Of course, on Stargate SG-1.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replicator_%28Stargate%29

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 13th 2006 10:28AM]

Dammit! Archie beat me to it. I was just going to scream,

"REPLICATORS!!! AAAAAAAHHHRGH!"

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 13th 2006 12:31PM]

Yet another attempt to do what Gene Simmions has already done in th movie "Runaway" with Tom Selleck. :)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088024/

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 13th 2006 2:37PM]

What a coincidence! I watched Runaway for the first time just last week. Pretty decent, actually; I'm a sucker for those near-future everyday life sort of movies. I even liked Paycheck with Ben Affleck.

The spider-bots in Runaway were just like the ones in the above article - awkward, hesitating, practically useless pieces of wow-factor robotics. Except, in Runaway, they also inject you with deadly acid. And then you die.

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 13th 2006 2:40PM]

"6-legged spiders" makes about as much sense as saying "5-sided triangle".