British scientists invent robotic "welly wanger"

With robots having already mastered such mainstream athletic activities as baseball, football, soccer (a.k.a. the "other" football), golf, and, um, foosball, it was only a matter of time before they became adept at lesser known sports such as bowling and Wellington Boot Throwing. A staple of British fashion since the early 19th century, the Wellington Boot (or gumboot, as it's sometimes called) eventually inspired a rather unique sporting event commonly referred to as "welly wanging" (we're not making this up -- it's even in Wikipedia, so it must be true), where the goal is to toss or kick the boot as far as possible. Well it seems that a team of scientists from Aberystwyth University were commissioned by the TV show "Scrapheap Challenge" to build a robotic welly wanger that could hurl the famous footwear even farther than the most adept Olympic shotputter, and by all accounts, they met with unbridled success. Their solution involved hooking a homemade propeller up to an engine from a concrete mixer and a gearbox from a Citroen 2CV, with the whole contraption controlled by three computers calculating such vital variables as wind speed and the propeller's RPMs. The robotic welly wanger is capable of hurling a boot as far as 242-feet, which must be be pretty damn impressive if it got a write-up by the BBC. Oh, and readers, let's see if we can go a whole robot-themed post without someone "welcoming our new welly-wanging overlords" in the comments section, m'kay?

[Via Slashdot]

[Chocolate Starfish @ Aug 24th 2006 3:49PM]

Only if you guys can go a whole day without using the term "deets" in a post.

[Drew @ Aug 24th 2006 3:56PM]

I agree with the sea creature!

[whatsaname @ Aug 24th 2006 3:57PM]

I for one welcome the new enforced rules to not welcome welly-wanged robots!

[Alex @ Aug 24th 2006 4:00PM]

Beware! The Welly-Wangering Cyborgs are among us!

*Gets hit by a boot from 242 feet away*

D'oh!

[Kris @ Aug 24th 2006 4:21PM]

I for one welcome our welly wanging overlords... now they can punish us from a distance (by wanging the welly, doh!)while they oversee us performing the menial tasks that they were once created to do...

[Wunch_of-Bankers @ Aug 24th 2006 4:27PM]

Oh please, don't be such a bunch of wangers!

[Captain Lumpy Dog @ Aug 24th 2006 5:19PM]

I for one DO NOT welcome our new Welly-Wanging overlords. In fact, I think they should all go home. However, the Belly-Bangers are more than acceptable.

Captain Lumpy Dog, Away!!!

[Kowalski @ Aug 24th 2006 5:54PM]

I, for one welcome our british boot-throwing-deathbot-overlords

[Tom Dowler @ Aug 25th 2006 3:11AM]

let's see if you can go a day without having some smarta$$ limey correcting the particulars of a story with a British interest.

No... that didn't last long: welly-wanging is a throwing only event - no kicking whatsoever.

well done on spelling Aberystwyth correctly though.

[chaymation @ Aug 25th 2006 4:01AM]

This event was one of the key parts of our school sports day when I was a kid. I seem to remember practising my wanging skils at home, in the weeks leading up to the day :D

[Kane @ Aug 25th 2006 4:02AM]

isn't Aberystwyth in wales?

[Grammar boy @ Aug 25th 2006 5:02AM]

What the hell is it with this 'm'kay' crap? What does it mean? Surely it's quicker to just write 'okay'? Or am I missing something?

Wow, I've just finished every sentence with a question mark, haven't I?

[Tom Dowler @ Aug 25th 2006 8:05AM]

yes, Aberystwyth is in Wales (which is one of the three constituent parts of Britain, or one of the four constituent parts of the United Kingdom of Great Britain & Northern Ireland, to give it the full name).

m'kay is surely a South Park reference. Hence it's funny. Hence it's worth taking those extra milliseconds to type it.

everyone who posts on here is so negative.

[John Stracke @ Aug 25th 2006 11:24AM]

Clearly, the welly wangers will never be the overlords. They'll be the servants cleaning Hubo's boots.

(Mind-boggling statistic: a search on Google for "robotic overlords site:engadget.com" finds over 2,000 hits.)