A friend pointed me to this interesting video of Dexter, the world's first dynamically balancing bipedal robot. Which is to say, it walks on two legs, and it does so without the walking motion being pre-programmed; it is able to move about in unfamiliar terrain and actually make the calculations to stay upright.
I found this cool on a couple of levels. First, there's the obvious engineering feat here. I don't know much about software programming, and less still about robotics, but I understand enough to know what a ridiculously complicated task this was to achieve. And while we may be a ways off from putting this to a practical use, you have to take the first step somewhere. (Pun intended.)
But on a second level, I find it cool that understanding just how crazy-complicated it is to create a program that can walk dynamically gives you a new appreciation of how the human brain does this. You do this all the time, without giving it any thought. The mind is making all these calculations with each step you take, and it's nothing. Whoa.
7 comments:
I agree with you: the human brain is one amazing computer. Language is usually the are that makes me go Wow: the speed at wich the brain encodes ideas into language, and then decodes language back into ideas. And sometimes in multiple languages, each with its own set of rules and exceptions.
Man.
I heard that Dexter's company was getting bought out as well. By that phone company ... what's its name .. Skynet.
It's also rather mind-blowing to have a pre-walking kid, sit there and look at them and think, "I just can't imagine her getting up and walking."
Then, one day, she stands without holding on to anything. Then there's a step. A couple of falls. Before you know it, she can run and jump. She just does it. You don't teach her. It's in there, waiting for the muscle memory to make it automatic.
It's absolutely crazy.
have you seen IRobot????
Curse you Brad for beating me to the Skynet reference...
the other robot trying to push it over, with the "segway" feet reminded me of Cyberball (an old arcade game with futuristic football played by robots)
yes, even the noise made by the walking robot brings back Terminator memories. he'll be back!
and a cool college physics professor also did the whole "brain calculates physics better than math" thing too. after a whole day of figuring out force and trajectories and distances or whatever, he threw a baseball and the student caught it without using the calculator of course... the whole class was like "whoa!"
the mole
The premise that the human brain performs calculations incredibly quickly that, otherwise are complicated to work out on paper was featured in a Douglas Adams book. Either Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency or The Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul. I can't remember which.
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