[smacintush]

Have you seen this? It's not often that I want something that costs this much and is this useless but the cool factor...

Youtube link

The one in the video was a pre-production model that cost like $2,800.

The production version is available for pre-order for $675.

Website

[subego]

For whatever reason, the thread title "Badass Robot" immediately made me think of the movie Big-Ass Spider.

[andi*pandi]

that is pretty cool.

[osiris]

Pretty cool spider - but an awfully expensive R/C toy.

[subego]

It would be hard for me to resist using it as a terror weapon against my pets.

[mindwaves]

Besides it being able to walk, what else can it do?

[osiris]

It needs a frickin "laser"

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by mindwaves 

Besides it being able to walk, what else can it do?

Besides it being able to walk absolutely realistically, it crouches, rises, and sidles.

That thing is amazing. (I love the little leg-jiggle it does when it stops.)

Rather more interesting than R/C cars, which do nothing but be able to drive, yet are strangely popular...

[osiris]

Roomba should come out with a version of this that can clean AND scare the crap out of people.

[andi*pandi]

ha, genius, osiris!

But then we'd be not far off from the evil creepy robot spiders in Runaway.

[The Final Dakar]

Is that this thing?

[The Final Dakar]

Originally Posted by osiris 

Roomba should come out with a version of this that can clean AND scare the crap out of people.

[subego]

Originally Posted by The Final Dakar 

Is that this thing?

This one lost two legs in the war.

[smacintush]

How awesome would this be with a touch sensor, an accelerometer, and a motion sensor? You could make this thing look alive in reaction to stimulus.

[The Final Dakar]

Originally Posted by smacintush 

How awesome would this be with a touch sensor, an accelerometer, and a motion sensor? You could make this thing look alive in reaction to stimulus.

In the future, you can do this as well: We’ve Put a Worm’s Mind in a Lego Robot's Body | Smart News | Smithsonian

The OpenWorm project has mapped the connections between the worm’s 302 neurons and simulated them in software. (The project’s ultimate goal is to completely simulate C. elegans as a virtual organism.) Recently, they put that software program in a simple Lego robot.

The simulation isn’t exact—the program has some simplifications on the thresholds needed to trigger a "neuron" firing, for example. But the behavior is impressive considering that no instructions were programmed into this robot. All it has is a network of connections mimicking those in the brain of a worm.

[smacintush]

Originally Posted by osiris 

Pretty cool spider - but an awfully expensive R/C toy.

You haven't priced RC stuff lately have you? Real hobbyists aren't buying Air Hogs for $59.99 at Walmart. This stuff can cost well into the thousands. $675 isn't bad.

It's just...out of MY price range...

[subego]

Originally Posted by smacintush 

How awesome would this be with a touch sensor, an accelerometer, and a motion sensor? You could make this thing look alive in reaction to stimulus.

Oculus that ****er!

[el chupacabra]

… .

[Spheric Harlot]

Our brain has no such instinct.

People need to be conditioned to become afraid of spiders.

[subego]

I'm way more afraid of cockroaches than I am of spiders.

That said...

[andi*pandi]

We keep rescuing a spider in our kitchen. First, he was on the floor and the dog thought he was fun to play with. We rescued him and put him in the other room. Then he was on the table during dinner and we moved him to the other room. This morning, I found him on the whistling teakettle, and yep, moved him to the other room. Either Darwin is at work or he's suicidal. Or, he has 50 siblings invading our kitchen for unknown reasons?

[reader50]

Or there's no insects to eat in the other room.