[HN Gopher] World's largest exoskeleton mech suit inspires a new...
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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?
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