iRobot’s soft, shape-shifting robot blob can roll around and change shape.
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#19 Told you already, military. And BTW, that wasn’t the robot, but a test of the shape shifting for environment adaptation & propulsion.
We could also send a squirming robot up through the hole in the Gantenbrink door.
#21–Pedro==we’ve already been thru that answer and again I ask: SPECIFICALLY what is the application this robot is best fitted to? Now, its just fatally VAGUE to say “Military” and nothing more. Any expert with sufficient knowledge would at least include what BRANCH of the military has SPECIFIC uses of this slow tethered robot. Sheesh!!!!!
#23 ::sigh::
You have eyes but cannot see
A human mind but cannot imagine
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LET GO of the friggin tether ffs!
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This thing has a lot to do with fluid dynamics..
Fill it with nanoferromagnetic fluid it’s shape can be modified by remote electromagnetic waves or by internally generated magnetic domains.
The “cell” design that was scribbled out on the paper looked very similar to the cell structure in the 3rd and 4th layers of skin (the Granular layer and the Prickle-cell layer)
One of THE most important needs of the military is to be “unseen”.
-to blend in, be chameleon-like, be stealthy etc, yes?
You can take this material and make it into a skin which can be as rigid as a aluminum or carbon fiber and as pliable or flaccid as bag of jelly, and grossly change it’s shape as well.
You could stretch this material over a vehicle or framework and change its overall outwardly appearance, -instantly.
The ability to blend *into* your surroundings is priceless.
This would be a great asset against aerial photography for starters. The applications are endless.
Change your tank to look like the enemies, for instance.
It may even be possible to make minute changes to an airfoil skinned with this stuff, effecting major changes to the flight envelope in real time.
In the case anti-gravity craft, where an airfoil is only needed in atmospheric flight, you could change the contours according what part of the atmosphere your in.
-or change the entire appearance of the craft when grounded to blend in..
As i mentioned in my first post. you could design something with the musculature are articulation of any part of a human.
-all tip of the iceberg.
And you do not need a tether. That tether image was planted in your mind to keep it from wondering outside it’s box. -It apparently worked flawlessly.
Rise above your programming d00d! (and if you don’t turn off your bloody TeeVee, you never will)
-s
# 11 pedro,
#10 What about a penile implant.
pedro, sounds like you got some scrotum size envy.
Interesting but the power supply, computer and everything else is outside this robot.
Bobbo,
There are quite a few military apps where telepresence or remote weapons delivery is involved and a tether is of no consequence. Entering a tunnel or bunker or house or random hole full of bad guys, any of these situations can be adressed with a very long flexible pole (a mega-petard, as you will), and a robot on a tether is the ultimate long stick. The TOW is an aerial robot on a tether, as another example. This would be yet another means of locomotion well-suited to broken terrain.
This does not even go into the further exploration of the core tech as mentioned by Soundwash. Are you sure you aren’t arguing with Pedro just because he can be a bit of a jerk when it comes to politics?