[HN Gopher] Meet Bex, Kawasaki's Rideable Robot Goat (2022)
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       Meet Bex, Kawasaki's Rideable Robot Goat (2022)
        
       Author : rmason
       Score  : 30 points
       Date   : 2024-12-18 20:48 UTC (4 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.cycleworld.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.cycleworld.com)
        
       | gaudat wrote:
       | Imagine that thing painted neon green and hurling down the
       | highway.
        
         | zh3 wrote:
         | I for one won't be trading in my old ZX-9R.
        
       | sho_hn wrote:
       | This is astonishingly bad, at least as a demo. What does it do
       | that is interesting?
        
         | gregoriol wrote:
         | It shakes you into sickness, it's a feature
        
         | RaftPeople wrote:
         | > _What does it do that is interesting?_
         | 
         | Are you kidding me? Did you not see the lights that go up the
         | goats neck and horns?
        
       | dvh wrote:
       | They wanted to called it iBex but Apple sent them cease and
       | desist.
        
       | Brajeshwar wrote:
       | I thought, "But Why? Why a Goat?" Then, "It is Japan. Awesome.
       | Why Not?"
       | 
       | Let's do a bike that is also a horse for Indian roads. Ride the
       | Bike; if potholes on the road, it starts galloping.
        
         | shatsky wrote:
         | Maybe it was just a poorly prepared humorous performance
         | referencing Monty Hall problem?
        
       | saaaaaam wrote:
       | The clunky robogoat is bad enough. The terrible frantic clanging
       | music elevates the awfulness to a whole other level.
        
         | pryelluw wrote:
         | I enjoyed it for those reasons. It's definitely a Japanese's
         | robotics video. Been watching them for years and they're
         | definitely their own thing.
        
           | saaaaaam wrote:
           | "Elevates the awfulness to a whole other level" is not
           | incompatible with also relishing the video!
           | 
           | (I was going to say "enjoying the video" but that's not quite
           | accurate, relishing seems a better way to capture the
           | feeling. There's probably a Japanese word for 'taking
           | fleeting pleasure in something awful but which if consumed
           | too often or in too great a quantity will become briefly but
           | overwhelmingly obnoxious')
        
             | pryelluw wrote:
             | If not then probably in German.
             | 
             | I used to spend a lot of time watching Japanese robotics
             | videos back when RoboOne became a thing. Biped fighting
             | robots were cool. The videos were so god awful. I developed
             | a liking to them in a Stockholm syndrome ish kind of way.
        
       | Mistletoe wrote:
       | Robotics designers will do anything to avoid the innovations of
       | the wheel.
        
         | BSDobelix wrote:
         | Not all of them:
         | 
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkhd-GSpI0A
        
           | Apocryphon wrote:
           | Looks like someone watched the new Star Wars trilogy
        
             | BSDobelix wrote:
             | Why would anyone do that?? ;)
        
       | numpad0 wrote:
       | (2022)
        
       | Animats wrote:
       | (2022)
       | 
       | Not seen again, much. In 2024, there's a video of it as a cargo
       | carrier, with a luggage rack replacing the seat. The foam
       | outriggers are no longer present, so stability has probably
       | improved.[1]
       | 
       | Unclear why they stuck those omni-wheels on the ankles.
       | 
       | Notice that in the 2022 video, there's a humanoid robot hanging
       | around in the back. In 2023, Kawasaki showed off a better
       | humanoid.[2] It's pretty good. One of the demos is that it picks
       | up one end of a table, while a human picks up the other, and they
       | work together to move the table, moving forwards, backwards, and
       | turning to get it around some obstacles.
       | 
       | This is Kawasaki's 7th generation humanoid. There's real
       | progress. Unlike Honda's ASIMO, which was abandoned a few years
       | ago.
       | 
       | There are over a dozen humanoid robot projects now.[3] Some of
       | them are pretty good. Most have hands and reasonable manipulation
       | ability. When funding is mentioned, figures such as US$600
       | million are shown.
       | 
       | [1] https://www.reuters.com/video/watch/idOV179931052022RP1/
       | 
       | [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_h66xSbIEdU
       | 
       | [3] https://james.darpinian.com/blog/you-havent-seen-these-
       | real-...
        
       | usrusr wrote:
       | Not really eligible to be called a goat before it takes the high
       | ground of the announcer's platform just because it can.
       | 
       | But that choice of music, the "it transforms into a wheeled unit,
       | and back, for no good reason because both modes are awful", that
       | surely is an impressive display of love for mechatronics!
        
       | datavirtue wrote:
       | The defense version ships with a canon mounted on the back and
       | sides and it can separate and be recombined with a another
       | functional half in the field if it takes damage.
        
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