It's a bit hard to get noticed in all the mayhem of the Burning Man festival, so Linsday Lawlor did what any other self respecting engineer would do and built himself a 17-foot tall
robotic giraffe. Named Rave Raffe, the huge robot runs off of three 450-amp batteries that are charged by a 12-horsepower propane engine. The whole unit can run for about 8 hours at Raffe's top walking speed: 1 mile per hour. The 1700 pound robot has a pneumatic powered 8-foot neck, 40 strobe lights, 400 LEDs and a killer speaker system. The bot walks by moving two of its wheeled legs forward at a time, and then locking them with hydraulic brakes while the other two shuffle ahead. Lawlor (a laser-light-show designer, can you tell?) isn't done yet though, he's working on computerized flashing giraffe spots, a light up circulatory system, and a gas grill to get Raffe ready for this summer's Burning Man. If we weren't allergic to sunlight this might be worth a trek down to Nevada all on its own.
[Via
MAKE]
posted May 20th 2006 8:04PM
Engadget: As featured in Popular Science...
Now I know what to ask for, for christmas...
hmmmm..
Allergic to sunlight eh? So hide in your motorhomes all day and come out at night- that's when all the cool stuff is wandering around anyway.
I'd sooner light MYSELF on fire than go to that über hippie/dork fest. Cool gee-raff or not. BM is crap. And yes, I've been. And yes, I went years ago when it was cool. And yes, it's crap. Then and now (but most likely worse now). Where else can you go where a bunch of uptight wanna-bee's can fake creative one long weekend a year? It's like a weekend pass to be a dork. Or dick. Either one. Worst engadget article EVER!
I can't wait to go again this year! Hooray! Death to the man, long live the man!
I for one welcome our Robotic Giraffe overlords.
in soviet russia the giraffe walks you!
If I had a dollar for everytime I saw a robotic giraffe, I would have just one dollar..
Of all the animals in the world...
So now we gotta hide in underground caverns when the robotic giraffes attack?! ...no wait! Robotic fishes can swim too...
They should of included a Japanese guy cowering in fear as if he can not move himself out of the way...
I think that is very, very creative! It seems more people are building large objects to help them move around. Before too long people will be building exoskeletons for contests.
What would have made it even better is if he put some cloth on it to make it look like realistic!
hmmm..so THATS where joystiq got the inspiration for their T-shirts...interesting...
I've seen it at a few robotics events... RoboNexus, I think the MAKE Faire... It's neat and all, but it would be sweeter if it didn't have to have wheels... Still, it's pretty cool.
-Taylor
That is also the exact same picture they used in Popular Science.
This is a perfect example that shows the best that
un-creative people can do if they have money.
This guy really, really, REALLY needs to get laid.
We must do things. Even if not perfect.
Regards/Filipe
It's
A
Giraffe
Don't have an orgasm...
It's not the right color. Cool, though. How many AA batteries does it require ?
I saw this at Maker Faire...
It walked across the expo room... It was HUGE and really slow, but pretty cool