AQUA2 amphibious robot is super cute and fast, less annoying than most pets because it has no head
By Laura June 
posted July 8th 2010 2:14PM
posted July 8th 2010 2:14PM
posted July 8th 2010 2:14PM
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First! Cool...
@jckchn 2nd Ninjacoool-.-
These robots look like the ones i mad with legos when i was 7, except with more expensive parts
That is one awesome swiss army knife!
@jckchn
Neat! Looks like it'd be fun to play with. I wonder what they use to code it.
@jckchn
It's also less annoying than most pets because it has no ass.
@grahamj
Right on with no ass comment. You won't have to clean or pick up poop!
@hero785
no but you will probably need to clean sand out of it XD
other than that it looked EPIC cute :P
@jckchn "ocean entry from the beach"...I've done that! :)
@jckchn
Its the bay of pigs all over again. They should make those legs able to turn into wheels. It would make for a smoother and stealthier bot. Could have some interesting military applications as well..
@systox
The original RHex robot did have that capability, but it proved to be too complex to be reliable.
Check out this video of the original RHex robot. you will see the adjustable wheel legs at 3:11.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dilEgVu-6fw
@AQUA2guy
The original Rugged-RHex appears at 3:37.
Just put some high-powered laser canons on that and...
@Flutterbudget Cannons.
After watching that video, it seems a pretty darn awesome all terrain vehicle thing. Kinda cute, too, to be honest.
@Flutterbudget let the Android invasion begin....
Sort of reminds of my steve jobs...except he dives through pr and swims through fame...
@qitupx
Congratulations! You succeeded in linking even the most remotely possible post to Apple/Steve, somehow!
@qitupx You are a complete idiot!
McGill FTW
@thehui McGill McGill McGill!
That robot is pure awesomeness!!! :) I'll take two!
Not even the fish are safe from Skynet...
@lnm4444
this is one "you can run, but you can't hide" type robot
@lnm4444
Skynet hunting fish? Wouldn't that make it a Fishnet...
wow the movements of the robot in the video were surprising to watch... just like those big whales on national geographic....
for some reason I thought this thing was a lot bigger from looking at the first picture
"that can both dive and swim in water, and move about on land"
(knock, knock)
- Who's there?
- Candy gram.
- You can't fool me. You're that AQUA2 robot!
- ...Flowers...
Can somebody tell me why this is a robot and just a remote control 'thing'?
If this is a robot, why isn’t a remote control car or remote control airplane a robot? Aren’t Robots supposed to be autonomous?
@Oakman1000
Because it isn't just a remote control "thing." It appears to be autonomous and can do things like seek QR codes (or something similar) shown to it.
@grahamj
hmm actually they say it's tethered yet they show it seeking. Does not compute.
@Oakman1000
Many people still refer to not-really-autonomous devices as 'robots'. Even if this one is remote-controlled, you can also have partial autonomy where a robot makes some decisions itself but leaves harder decisions to a remote operator. (For example, you could have a human operator looking at the camera feed and clicking on an area of interest to navigate towards, but the robot figuring out how to navigate the currents to get there smoothly, capable of avoiding obstacles if something suddenly swims in the way, etc.)
Leaving that aside, though, given that they specifically demonstrated gesture recognition and following, I would assume this is a feature of the device. It's not very impressive if 'gesture recognition' means a remote operator can look through the camera and spot you putting two fingers up...
Possibly it has both autonomous and remote-control modes?
That robot is the shiz
Pets are not annoying. That's why they are called pets.
The robot has a head. It is just part of the body. Come on Laura think outside the box.
That would be so good for underwater search and rescue.
@bsod
Search? Yes. Rescue? Well, at least it can find things underwater.
Make it wireless and you got me! Nice innovation my fellow Canadians!
So I heard you like robo-mudkips
neat, all that's missing is for DARPA to scoop this up, strap on a thermo nuke and make a fleet of them to send to N.Korea/China
I am going to miniaturize this technology, arm it with a tiny warhead of my DNA, and flush my nanobots down the toilet and impregnate every girl in my neighborhood that doesn't use a toilet seat cover.
not sure what to do with my army of baby minions, but pretty sure it ends in $$PROFIT$$!
Yah but can it cap an out of control oil fck well
@adamjustadam
Exactly. Build a giant one that can stand the pressure of being a mile deep, attach a giant rubber cork to it and go plug that well. You can call it the Big Prick (or BP for short).
What about the Boston Dynamics RHex?
http://www.bostondynamics.com/robot_rhex.html
@Niasyn
Huh... it's the SAME robot! What gives?
@Larz
Ohhhh. So the ACTUAL story is that they've taken an existing remote-controlled 'robot', and added image processing software so that it can behave autonomously?
Maybe?
@xxxsam
where 'autonomously' is defined as 'so long as it's connected to the big-arse computer back on the boat', of course.
@Niasyn
They are both from the same family of robots. The designs are both derived from the RHex robot.
@xxxsam
The robot is being developed with increasing levels of autonomy. The link is often used mainly to relay images to the surface.
I want one. Now.
Not the first of its kind, guys. We had a robot just like this at a company I used to work at. It's called RHEX and the company is Boston Dynamics in Waltham, MA. This was one of their first robots.
@Brazen521
Both the current Boston Dynamics robot and this one are direct descendants of the original Rugged-RHex robot that was developed at McGill. Rugged-RHex was developed to primarily move on land, while being immersible, AQUA was designed to operate a deeper depths while maintaining land mobility.