Posted on 04/12/2009 12:15:48 PM PDT by 1believer
# De Principiis Cogitandi. Liber Secundus. (1 result) 11 Visa tamen tardi demum inclementia morbi
# Luna habitabilis (1 result) 24 Visa tibi ante oculos, et nota major imago.
1201?
Welp, I just found out what happens when one fills up the hard drive under Linux.
Penguin poop has to go somewhere, buddy.
I knew this day was coming...
OTOH with this (Xubuntu) distro I can now watch videos. Just watched a (UK) company Christmas 2007 luncheon video I found in the file system. Not especially embarrassing to anyone, but LoM might be amused. And see&hear one of my UK colleagues.
I quit using RAW most of the time because of the size. My SLR will only recognize memory to two gigs.
Gee, life imitating art. Again.
Why are we the least bit surprised, anymore?
Turn your vacuum into a death ray. I'm not sure it would work with a Dyson, though.
Hhmmm... I think I could rig a couple of spider-bot thrust units for a low-G Quiddich match...
Filter Queen becomes an anti-matter containment proximity mine.
Monring. (Yawn.) Just really wanted to stay in bed this morning. Oh well.
Morning. I’ve been scrubbing floors, walls, and bathrooms. This may prove to have been a bad idea, but at this stage of pregnancy I’m on the very fringes of rationality, so it’s better to end up with clean floors than with blood on the ceiling.
My Dyson could be an android killer drone. It lacks the deadly elegance of that art-deco Electrolux!
Here's what it takes to compete with your humble Imperial Weatherman;
"Messina helped pull together all the major Italian aerospace and engineering universities, as well as the two largest Italian aerospace companies, to support the race to land a robot on the moon by 2012."Now, for comparison purposes, here's their concept, (artist's version): Image
And here's my description:
Spider RobotsNote the discrepancy here. In the artist's conception, the outer limb segments are the same length as the closer ones. My design allows a greater limb length without affecting the folding parameters.
Spider robots were designed prior to, and specifically for, our journey to the moon. We needed an efficient way to do work in low gravity and vacuum.
We needed something that could withstand the temperature extremes, and be robust enough for construction work.
They are large, filling the design space of a four-meter sphere with their eight arms/legs folded along their exterior surfaces.
The arms are fastened at the equator of the sphere, or beltline. This more or less circular ring can rotate if needed, and equipment storage bays are arranged above and below the beltline.
The first segment of the arm is one-fourth the circumference of the sphere. The second is one-half. All joints are freely rotating, and the arms can assume a wide variety of combinations in their orientations.
The image looks "cute" in a robotic or toy sense, but an image of my spiderbot will be seen to be more capable of conquering the Lunar terrain because it has the reach to be able to lift itself over rocks and low barriers.
Now, to be fair, this seems an obvious design. On the Moon, temperature variation is a strong consideration, and the spherical shape is the most energy-conserving configuration. Folding the legs along the outside is just simple conservation of space available.
I like to think that I have the advantage also of a very simple operator "console". With my design, even an untrained operator would be able to use the robot effectively.
If they need further guidance, and wish to avoid an embarrassingly under-performing robot, I'll be right here.
What have the Italians done successfully, lately, technology-wise? I can’t think of anything.
They seem to be fair hands at working on cars.
“Working on cars,” but not getting them to go anywhere predictably ;-). Our nextdoor neighbor in Broken Arrow had a couple of Alfa Romeos; when he wasn’t working on the lawn, he was trying to get at least one of those cars to start!
It is rather surprising that “Italian design” would come up with a concept as strictly utilitarian as a spider-bot.
Well, fine. Let them build spider-bots and trundle around on the moon.
I’m putting together a sleek little atmospheric craft to go exploring Venus.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.