Cajun Crawler swaps Segway wheels for Theo Jansen's creepy leg mechanism
By Paul Miller 
posted Mar 16th 2009 12:33PM
posted Mar 16th 2009 12:33PM
[Via Nowhere Else]
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way cooler than a segway!
and cheaper, as i guess
Yeah, but can it carry an American ?
I've got to concede you're right with this one... though it is freaky as hell to watch as well... O_O
This is waaay bad ass!
They should put fake kitten skins on the crawly thing to make it look like you are the kitten overlord.
I'll agree with you RyanTV, when I see this thing scale a simple hill.
They should put real kitten skins on the crawly thing to let everyone know that you are indeed the kitten overlord.
looks like they reinvented the wheel.
holy awesomeness!
make that thing 100 times bigger and you got that mechanical spider from Wild Wild West.
and you also need to shoot Freakin LASER to top it.
I was meant to say "and you also need it to shoot Freakin LASER to top it"
It needs a giant eye on top of it. When you shoot the eye, it starts glowing red.
You want 100 times larger? Watch this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVV-ozgxxtY
That is not CGI. It is wind-controlled and it is the artwork of the guy who actualy invented the walking mechanism, Theo Jansen.
Good call, I immediately recognized Jansen's design here but still, WOW that's damn cool! I'd love to try driving it :D
This could actually be pretty interesting on larger scales. Imagine a car with hundreds of legs. If they were all sort of shock absorbed the car would fit itself to the surface and distribute the weight evenly over the area of the car. The grip would be nuts!
Unfortunately my guess is the friction and wear would ultimately make such a vehicle unrealistic but it, too, would be fun to drive!
i'd still rather have a segway.
Me to....
TOO
Um, I don't get the pint, it's not that fast, and the one guy fell forward when he tried to get off at one point, This is kinda cool, but Segway looks more prmising, easier to ride etc. BUT I know they are like a gazillion dollars, I guess I don't get the whole "I want a machine to walk for me thing" If you need it due to health etc, that's one thing, but as a toy, meh.
totally creepy
wheels > legs
You don't see vehicles with legs, this is a mode of transportation so it isn't going to surpass wheels
That only means it hasn't surpassed the wheel _yet_! :D
so much more power is needed to use legs over a wheel, I'm not saying that it can't be better in safety but it sure as hell can't be more power proficient though
You don't see humans with wheels...
Yeah, vehicles with legs are too vulnerable to furry woodland creatures and tow cables.
Theo Jansen's new leg design; its as efficient as a wheel if not more.
dude! is that a boy scout logo???
seriously? It's called a feur des lis.
@fr3z3rburn
Its actually called a fleur-de-lis
The fleur-de-lis is a widely used symbol in Louisiana, because it used to be a French colony.
Its called a Fleur de Lis. French for lily flower. its the symbol for Louisiana
FLQ!
Way cooler than a Segway. It may be slower, but that's just so people have longer to see how cool you are ;)
Where can I get myself one?
Video is 5 minutes too long.
and is better muted
@extinction
Second that!
+1, should be 1 minute at most, and no need for music at all. I'd rather hear how this thing sounds. REPLICATORS from SG-1!!! :)
And it shows the device moving on... PERFECTLY SMOOTH SURFACES. Whoop de friggin' doo. Isn't the point of legs their ability to handle uneven terrain better than wheels?
Im impressed with simplicity of the design and the working mechanism.
All it needs is a confederate flag.
Way to ruin a good comment. It's bigots like you that keep pushing myths.
Nice! Now all you have to do is *mention* the confederate flag and you're a "bigot." I am glad that enlightened users like kjb434 are here to guide us.
Did you completely miss the similarities to the spider in Wild Wild West, or the "wheel chair"?
Not everything is political statement.
Go Louisiana!
Pretty cool. Until it EATS YOUR FOOT OFF...
what does it have with segway? it is controled with the handle, not with movements (gyro), so it is "just" a practical usage of the legs on device looking simillar to segway.
And who the hell invented that handle? Too small for standing man, too big for a sitting one.
If they would give it some practical advantage, it would make at least some sense, but it hasn't. E.g. the legs got rolls on the "foot", so if you would put it on the hill, it will just go down because of the rolls.
The legs are good alternative for moving on a not-flat floor, so if they would invent such stand with possibility to walk on stairs, with moderate speed on normal floor (downhill, uphill), it could be practicaly used e.g. for wheelchairs.
> ...And who the hell invented that handle? Too small for standing man, too big for a sitting one...
Typical of college workshops worldwide, the students (obviously) scavenged parts that weren't "interesting" to make themselves from other objects - like a kid's scooter.
Chances are good that it's an adjustable handle - seeing as there's a joint halfway through. They just didnt feel like adjusting it for class testing.
The feet are round ,but they are not rollers, they are fixed.
Take off the handlebars and sit down on it. Now, you have the creepiest moving chair ever.
First!
Some say he's got more legs than a centipede.
Some say he bites his partner's head off after mating.
All we know is ... he's called: The Stick (wif legs on).
(I know it's spelled The Stig, OK?!)
Some say _I_ bite off my partners' heads after mating, but that doesn't mean they can prove anything.
I want the fat kid to try it!
Yeah... it'd definitely go faster with him on it *rolls eyes...*
It'd probably break.
University of Louisiana? Didn't Bobby Boucher play for them?
Well, that was the name of the school he played for, yes, but it was a fictional school. The name of the real school is University of Louisiana at Lafayette, which it says at the end of the video.
It needs to make that spider noise from Centipede every time it moves.
Also, note that none of the fat people in the video rode this contraption. If they tried, the Cajun Crawler would probably try to run away from them!
And i was going to be attending there last fall. Decided to go to Tech instead. O well.
@kjb434
Im Russian so blow me!
And learn to take a joke, you'll live longer and have more friends.
There is no University Of Louisiana. I am guessing they mean either University of Louisiana at Lafayette or University of Louisiana at Monroe.
Yeah. I hate that they do that. It's ULL.
Had you watched the video, you would see that it says "University of Louisiana at Lafayette" at 5:26 into it.
By that reasoning, there is no Louisiana State University, either. There is only Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College at Baton Rouge. Calling it 'LSU' would be a slight to the folks at the Eunice campus.
And yes, this is at ULL, as indicated by the 'Cajun Crawler' moniker. If it were ULM, they would have to call it the 'Redneck Rocket' or the 'West Mississippi Ambler.'
No, if it was UL-M, they'd have to call it the Yankee Walker.
Go Ragin' Cajuns! (from a lowly McNeese State grad)
its UL Lafayette, i guess i should take a stroll down to our engineering dept to check this out.
and for those comparing it to a segway, i think its more of a proof of concept for what is possible with the legs as opposed to competition for the segway, but even if it is its a hell of a lot more stable than a segway that's for sure.
Totally looks like a mini mars/lunar rover, NASA should give them a call.
Ridin' Dirty! LMAO i love geek humor!
Should have used Weird Al's Ridin' Nerdy instead. Would have fit much better.
Can a chimapnzee tide on it?
OMAP n Zii, maybe
did eleanor roosevelt really say nasty?
the handlebars aren't tall enough. one dude falls off
Would something like this be good for a lunar rover? Is the efficiency better then wheels? Weighs less? Better over obstacles? Obviously on Mars or the moon speed isn't exactly something you care about. Or is there alot more failure points in the legs then with wheels?
Reminds me of Humma Kavula from the Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy.
http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/hitchhikers-history-22.jpg
it looks kinda like two six-legged horses underneath.
The table in the bottom left corner looks a little bit like a giant PLAY button.
Great work by those guys.
Of course, it is defeated by ball of string.
hahah
Nice. I wonder what kind of range it has, the battery can't last long.
But I would definitely choose this over a Segway.
Sweet, I've raced against that car before. (The baja car in the back)
Good plug for Baja SAE, kinda.
Weird... I look at it, see two motors on the sides underneath to independently control the legs (notice that the walking is variable-speed)..... so where are the batteries? I couldn't find them, and it must take a significant amount of juice to run this.
The batteries are the blue packs. They used Cordless drills as power source and driving source.
I can't tell if it's creepy or if it's cute :|
There's only one thing this video needs... the Benny Hill theme song: http://james.nerdiphythesoul.com/bennyhillifier/speedup.php?id=JCPlczI3k-c
love it! xD
+1 internet
ROFL
The first minute of the video sucked ass...
the device itself seems more interesting than a segway, but lacks segway's dynamic balance capabilities (the fact that this thing has a problem with tipping over forward during a rapid stop).
It would be really neat if they could scale the legs up to something that could climb stairs. It'd be kind of like that spider chair from the movie version of "Wild Wild West".
Sorry, White and Nerdy...there goes my nerd cred.
The feet are not rollers they are fixed, and as for using handlebars from a scooter, it's called a time constraint. All of the time in one semester was used to develop, fabricate, and assemble the important part, the legs! Minor details such as the handlebars and switches can be modified later. All in all our design goals were met then exceeded. Thanks for all of the great comments, I'm happy that it has sparked such an interest and is providing some entertainment.
do you mean Louisiana State University? I'm pretty sure a "University of Louisiana" doesn't exist.
University of Louisiana at Lafayette, ULL Ragin Cajuns. Look it up!
it's cool but i would take a segway over it anytime the balance is terrible the guy keeps on falling off
That's actually a really cool mode of locomotion. Where were you on that one Mother Nature??
Evolution Fail!
This is Awesome! I graduated in EE from ULL and it's great to see them in the news. Geaux Cajuns!
It's also Quebec's provincial flower.
yea... the legs still kinda freak me out. and i like the look of the segway better. is this faster than a segway?
Nice thing about segway is the way it uses gyros to auto balance, which this thing apparently doesn't have. Put in gyros and increase the speed and it would be pretty wicked.
Everyone keeps saying what a better piece of machinery the segway is, but you have to keep in mind the segway had several years to develop into what it is today. As far as I can tell development for the segway started in 1999 and the commercial segway didn't come out until 2002.
Keep it up UL.