Here is a clip where Paul Merton is in China visiting Mr Woo who designs robots at his home out of junk and rubbish or whatever recycled junk parts he finds laying around. Mr. Woo’s robots are quite inventive, he even designed a 2 legged robot capable of pulling himself around in a rickshaw cart. However, most of Mr. Woo’s robots appear to be innovative, but fairly unconventional. Mr Woo is a rural Chinese farmer who taught himself to build fun kinetic robots. He has no money, no education, and no decent materials to work from but he ends up making pretty sophisticated and quirky-looking robots that can walk, pour tea, and best of all, pull a rickshaw. They are even quite hilarious, he gets great kudos for imagination. >D His wife hates it, but isn’t that always the case with every inventor?
BigDog is one of the next generation military assist machines in development right now. Big Dog is a research and development project by Boston Dynamics. The Big Dog project is funded by DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency. Boston Dynamics claims Big Dog is the most advanced quadruped robot on earth. BigDog runs at 4 mph, climbs slopes up to 35 degrees, walks across rubble and carries a 340 lb load. BigDog can even walk over terrain such as ice and snow to reach its destination. It also has amazing balancing skills, in the video you can watch someone kick Big Dog from the side and it knows how to recover itself without falling over. BigDog is the size of a large dog or small mule, measuring 1 meter long, 0.7 meters tall and 75 kg weight. This is an amazing robot, when the final production model makes it to the troops it will be a huge help in areas where it is unsafe for people to travel. From the U-Tube description
“BigDog is the alpha male of the Boston Dynamics family of robots. It is a quadruped robot that walks, runs, and climbs on rough terrain and carries heavy loads. BigDog is powered by a gasoline engine that drives a hydraulic actuation system. BigDog’s legs are articulated like an animal’s, and have compliant elements that absorb shock and recycle energy from one step to the next. BigDog is the size of a large dog or small mule, measuring 1 meter long, 0.7 meters tall and 75 kg weight.”
