Monday, April 16, 2012

When Will Scientists Ever Learn?


The holy grail of the whole soft robotics initiative that many research groups are so interested in is, arguably, the octopus. Anyone who has ever seen an octopus in action can understand why: they're capable of some extraordinary maneuvers, thanks to relatively large brains, very fine motor control, and a near-total lack of bones.

The Octopus Project is a European, er, project that's working on "investigating and understanding the principles that give rise to the octopus sensory-motor capabilities and incorporating them in new design approaches," and their newest design approach is this fully mobile roboctopus with eight soft tentacles.


The unique abilities of the cephalopods is something to be feared, not emulated. This can only end badly for all of us. There is no such thing as a 'soft tentacle' - just the kind of thing that SKYNET would come up with. Eight spikey arms is eight times more deadly than just one.

2 comments:

DrGoat said...

Basically the beginning of those armored, tentacled robots that can whip around on the ceiling and skewer you in the chest with a spike tipped arm. Yow.

Cal's Canadian Cave of Coolness said...

That is exactly the way I see this turning out. They always have to make their murders so messy - because they have the robots to clean up the mess.