Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/09/22/watch-japans-giant-gundam-robot-walk-and-kneel.html
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It is being suspended in air. It’s feet aren’t even touching the ground (one tell is that when it moves it’s feet, sometimes the move DOWN, which isn’t possible if the feet are already resting on solid ground)
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Watch Japan’s giant Gundam robot walk and kneel
… from a great distance!
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Yeah, it’s clearly attached to the gantry. So it’s basically the world’s largest puppet, essentially.
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Go Big or Go Home!!
WOW!!
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Anyone else thinking about this?
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Yeah, it’s movements are like the kind you get in a video game where the limb animations don’t match the actual speed or distance moved.
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Is it terrible of me to be excited at the prospect of Japan invading my country using giant Gundams? (Knowing full well that Japan are not in the business of invading anyone’s country…but still…it would be cool.).
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I thought it was telling that the video cut off its feet.
But also if it was really kneeling it would scuff up the paint on the legs.
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I am still impressed with some of the engineering and effort here; but yeah…its connected to a stabilizing gantry. It’s not walking free.
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I mean, they USED to be in this business. Like 1940-ish.
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I have a bad feeling about this.
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I welcome our new robot overlords. . . because I have no choice in the matter.
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How many mpg?
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I mean… those legs are clearly not at all load-bearing. The arms and legs are entirely decorative, and all the mechanical work is done by the obscured, black frame.
It’s pretty similar to the French mechanical elephant, where all the actual locomotive power is done by a tractor that the build rests on. Which is a beautiful and creative piece of art, but could not legitimately be called a walking machine.
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Yah, as others have said, this is clearly not what people would like to think it is. That video is seriously sketchy- sped up, no audio, not showing the feet, a lot of cuts in it. Whatever this thing will end up being, it will not walk around independently like people imagine. We can’t even do that well in a robot 1/10th this size, never mind something weighing hundreds of tons or more. This is a silly publicity stunt.
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As a puppet or mobile sculpture or parade float it’s an impressive project that would be well-suited for a Mardi Gras celebration or Burning Man gathering. We don’t diss Walt Disney’s Lincoln animatronic because it can’t walk around the White House under its own power.
As a functional humanoid robot… not so much.
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I mean, it hasn’t been that long since they were. There’s still hope.
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The Japanese robot is 18 meters tall. Atlas is 1.8 meters tall. Behold:
Unfortunately the square-cube law means that we’ll probably never see giant gundams pull off the same sick parkour moves.
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I try not to be an outrage monger, but - really?
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