A good 90% of our day is spent sitting in a chair delivering you non-stop gadget action, but that other 10% of our waking hours when we're forced to pursue nourishment, let the dog out, and make trips to the bathroom can be a real drag. What we wouldn't give for a chair like the lucky kids at Waseda University have built, a two-foot tall, bipedal "robot" that uses a combination of hydraulics and algorithms to saunter along fairly gracefully and even negotiate difficult terrain like the potentially-deadly household staircase. The WL-16IV, as this model is known (Waseda-Leg Number 16 Refinement Four, apparently) follows several
earlier units by the same name, as well as an antiquated prototype from 2001 known called the WL-16. Hit the Read link for some good machine translation fun, or do yourself a favor and just head straight to
the video of this dream chair in action.
posted Mar 6th 2007 10:14PM
Cool, now I can literally walk allover people
it's obviously the first step toward GUNDOM. :D
I think it's great, if it works, it can help a lot of people with disability to actually get around in their own house.
If that's a two-foot tall robot, how big is the guy?
I, for one, welcome our new two-foot tall, bipedal "robot" overlords. =]
surely, as one sits on them, they are in fact, underlords
Who's the emo kid at the wheel? If i were in that seat i would be grinning ear to ear!
Right on, he's 100% bored with his own ice grilled badassness. Love it. I want one of those overalls.
Remember that Futurama episode where the professor is walking in the woods on a camping expedition and is using one of these walking chairs. This guy watches Futurama and ripped off the professor's invention!
coolest robot ever!
this makes dean kamen look like an amateur.
You'd think that wouldn't you?
Can you get on elevators with that?
That's what I would do if I had that robot.
This is nothing more than two scaled down Tricept robot arms. Installed few of them 20 years ago at Boeing. The robot (original Neos Tricept) has changed hands several times, but as I remember it was a Swiss invention.
FINALLY! Now i can complete my Krang costume!
I love the kid's old school Air Jordans!
Dang, beat me to it.
That seems significantly more cumbersome than the iBOT Mobility System:
http://robotphotos.org/v/first/deka/
More than anything else in this article: I want my team at my workplace to have cool jumpsuits like those guys. Difficulty: I work in IT.
that guy looks just like shouta from the jdrama 'attention please'
Has anybody noticed the operator is wearing classic Air Jordans? How ironic is that?
While that's pretty cool and all, I'd hate to be strapped in that thing when it trips and falls down the stairs like that Sony robot a few weeks ago.
Cool video.
Where can I get one?
http://www.robotliving.com