[HN Gopher] World's largest exoskeleton mech suit inspires a new... ___________________________________________________________________ World's largest exoskeleton mech suit inspires a new sport Author : mardiyah Score : 67 points Date : 2022-11-05 16:16 UTC (6 hours ago) (HTM) web link (tvpworld.com) (TXT) w3m dump (tvpworld.com) | Andrew_nenakhov wrote: | Who wants mecha-racing? We _need_ mecha-fighting league, One Must | Fall 2097-style [0], or Robot Jox [1] style! | | [0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Must_Fall:_2097 | | [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robot_Jox | orzig wrote: | I've got you: https://youtube.com/c/megabotsinc | | They only did one real fight, but still 190k followers | bilsbie wrote: | What's holding us back on exo skeletons anyway? The idea shave | been around for decades? | | I'd guess power sources? Small enough actuators? Or is it just | really difficult for a human to control? | njharman wrote: | Mainly what does having an expensive, fragile human who | requires tons of support (air, water, breaks) and legal | liability & regulation offer over a remote or now/soon | autonomous machine? | | Answer, not enough to be profitable. | rpastuszak wrote: | I think that's a very good point. I agree that there's not | much market for it, but also that humans are completely | redundant here. Any huge mech would be easier to operate as a | drone than a huge human Tupperware. | modeless wrote: | You need a strong rigid cage to protect the operator, with | comfortable seating and controls, a large and heavy power | source, and something more practical than legs for movement. | Put all that together, and you essentially have an excavator. | | Excavators can do amazing things in the hands of a skilled | operator. They have interchangeable tools and they come in a | wide range of sizes. Maybe the small ones feel more like | exoskeletons than the big ones. Some even have the operator in | a standing position. The smallest Bobcat (technically a | "loader" instead of an "excavator") is little more than a cage | with wheels and one big arm: | https://www.bobcat.com/na/en/equipment/loaders/skid-steer-lo... | | I guess what you're really missing to make this feel like a | scifi exoskeleton is two arms, more degrees of freedom per arm, | a much more capable "hand", way more speed in all of the | actuators, and a more 1:1 control style. All of that would make | these things way more expensive and probably fragile, and maybe | it isn't worth the cost today, especially when considering | ongoing maintenance. | orbital-decay wrote: | In any industry, designing things for specialized tools | (cranes, forklifts) is typically much easier than designing a | universal tool to handle everything. (exoskeletons). They have | some niche uses like prolonged work with the arms raised, | though. | | In military, passive exoskeletons are more useful than powered | ones. They are just fancy springs to rebalance and lighten the | load on soldiers. | | For medical purposes, exoskeletons are used for thousands of | years. They are probably not what you'd call an exoskeleton, | though. A basic example is a splint. | MonkeyMalarky wrote: | Power to weight ratios? | dane-pgp wrote: | ^ This, particularly when viewed in terms of the square-cube | law. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square%E2%80%93cube_law | sandworm101 wrote: | Lack of any real market for them. In any industrial | application, a human driving a forklift is way more efficient | than someone given superman strength via an exosuit. There are | some niche military applications such as rapidly loading a | truck by hand, piling sandbags and such. Replacement or | supplementing the function of damaged limbs is another niche, | but that isn't much of a market. Everyone wants one but nobody | expects to jog to work in one, as opposed to any number of | other vehicle options. | | I read once about a Japanese exosuit powered by compressed air. | The market they were targeting was elder care. Using compressed | air meant you could assist/lift elderly people around water | without worry. | ShredKazoo wrote: | How about current wheelchair users who would like to go | hiking? | MichaelZuo wrote: | Most wheelchair users don't have the means to pay several | hundred grand for such a system, nor the expensive daily | maintenance it entails. | | Maybe when it's mass produced in the millions like cars it | will be more affordable. | datameta wrote: | In fact there are a number of invisible disabilities that | take away a person's ability to hike. I was inspired to | start 3D-printing with the goal of developing a lower body | exoskeleton using "exotic" filaments that would make the | suit less bulky, more rugged, and longer lasting than the | admittedly amazing prototypes I've seen made of PLA. | Loquebantur wrote: | _Construction_ seems a good fit? Mining maybe, too. | TaylorAlexander wrote: | I think dexterity would be a problem for construction. Or | if you re-engineer the building to accommodate machines, | then you probably want more automation than a human in a | mech suit. Mining probably is all set with much larger | machines, though I know nothing about mining. | jollofricepeas wrote: | I wish him well, but.. | | The market for this is Japan. | | If he can make it happen there, then exoskeleton sports can | potentially make it anywhere, no? | | Who doesn't love a little lite mecha action. | jbverschoor wrote: | Mech warrior | walrus01 wrote: | When I saw "Canadian-born artist and..." I thought about the guy | who made a "bear proof" suit many years ago. | | https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=troy+hurt... | myself248 wrote: | I had high hopes for Megabots, but it was pretty anticlimactic to | watch. There's potential here, but nobody's unlocked the formula | yet. | 0x08 wrote: | I wish TVP would have pointed out that he effectively build a | strandbeest that can be driven by a person inside the | strandbeest. still really cool. Normally these are self propelled | https://www.strandbeest.com/ | dom96 wrote: | Off-topic but TIL that TVP (a polish TV network) has an | international news channel https://tvpworld.com/51656539/our- | stream | Kwpolska wrote: | (a Polish state-owned government propaganda broadcaster*) | baxtr wrote: | I am bit worried about Poland's push to restrict media. Isn't | that exactly what we're fighting for in Ukraine? A system | where many opinions can co-exist. | kevin_thibedeau wrote: | No. If it was, something would have been done about the | Crimea invasion. Ukraine is a proxy war to weaken a | problematic dictator. | solardev wrote: | Hmm, gotta say I was imagining some sort of exo-triathlon, not... | crab-walking? Spider-driving? | HankB99 wrote: | Competition will certainly deliver greater speed. I wonder | about a couple things. | | 1) How do you define what is a mech? Would a mech with | something that rolls along the ground qualify? It seems like | that's the quickest/easiest way to gain speed. | | 2) How can you protect the fans? A search of "monster truck | kills spectators" finds a lot of incidents. I didn;t count. | | I suppose appropriate rules could solve either of these, | hopefully w/out bloodshed. | solardev wrote: | Nothing wrong with that they built. Seems like it'd be a cool | thing to bring to Burning Man. It just wouldn't quite qualify | as what I'd consider a "sport"... it's not much fun to watch | this thing lumbering around like a dying crustacean. | tanseydavid wrote: | NASCAR manages to pull in spectators though. | solardev wrote: | Now, if they combined the two... had this thing chasing | itty-bitty cars around a closed track, eating whatever it | catches... THAT, I'd pay money to watch. | sandworm101 wrote: | Been done. Truckasaurus was essentially a mech atop a | truck chassis and could pick up cars. | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1KsTWegnOs | solardev wrote: | Why can't every race be like this? NASCAR, Tour de | France, the Olympics... the sports world just generally | needs more fire-breathing mechs. | Maursault wrote: | Truckasaurus feels very badly about what happened.[1] | | [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bP3mhnDlIkM | iancmceachern wrote: | There is a YouTube video from megaprojects about how mechs | are actually pretty bad war machines. I suspect it's | similar for sports. | | A wheeled, tracked, or flying vehicle of similar size, | weight and cost is always superior. It's just a | fundamentally inefficient way to go about building and | locomoting a machine. | Aeolun wrote: | > It's just a fundamentally inefficient way to go about | building and locomoting a machine. | | Since humans are built the way they are, this can't | actually be true right? ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-11-05 23:00 UTC)