You can tell the scientists at South Korea’s Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology really love their job, regardless of how valuable its real-world applications might be–because even though I can’t imagine why we’d need a robotic replica of a velociraptor in the world, they have built one [link is in Korean].
You can tell the scientists at South Korea’s Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology really love their job, regardless of how valuable its real-world applications might be–because even though I can’t imagine why we’d need a robotic replica of a velociraptor in the world, they have built one [link is in Korean]. PC Mag tells us “the raptor sports a tail for dynamic balance control and an Achilles tendon to absorb shock, as well as more mechanical bits like carbon/epoxy composite legs and a running pattern generator.” As this video from youtube shows, it can also run really, really fast–46 kilometers per hour, or in America’s typical non-metric measurements, 28.58 mph:
The original velociraptor was a genus of dinosaur that lived in the late Cretaceous–75 million years ago. It was a superfast attack machine, as we all saw when two of them tried to kill those kids in that kitchen in Jurassic Park. The new robot version is only 1.5 feet tall, though, and while its top speed makes it even faster than Usain Bolt (clocked at 27.78 mph), it’s also stuck running on that treadmill you see in the video, due to being unable to maintain balance without being attached to a robot arm. Which makes this thing even less cool–it can’t even go insane, get off its leash, and chase scientists through the KAIST labs at top speed. This situation doesn’t even have potential to turn into an awesome horror movie… at least, not yet it doesn’t. But until this robot is fully developed into the coldly brutal killing machine it has the potential to be, tide yourself over with this choice bit of Jurassic Park velociraptor action:
