Meet NASA's Valkyrie: A silky busty robo superhero that'll save your life NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC) has revealed its entry into the $2m DARPA Robotics Challenge, which will start later this month. The result is a robot dubbed Valkyrie that's designed to look like a sexy superhero. Valkyrie robot cleavage 'My eyes are up here, thank you' The 1.9-metre tall, 125kg droid has interchangeable …
Team Val wanted a more human feel so clothed the robot in soft fabrics.
I for one appreciate the thought. If I'm going to get pounded by a rebelling robot, I'd rater it be soft, lean and got a nice cleavage to boot – rather than, say, look like an expressionless Austrian dude?
So I was pondering what the practical application for the tits on this thing might be, and then I realized of course! Supplying nourishment to trapped disaster victims. Although, I suspect it will be more readily accepted if delivered in the form of high energy food bars behind a panel a compartment in the chest area instead of the traditional method.
Aren't they both state agencies? Why would one agency spend tax dollars to develop something so that they can win a tax-dollars-sponsored price?
Hmm now that i re-read my question i start to think that Nasa would like to have another agencies money - provided they win of course, in the process they end up with something that can be used in future missions, so its a win-win situation for them either way.
Not bad Nasa.
Nasa has had to resort to running things more like a business ever since the funding cuts of the last 14 years or so. They sell computing services to other government agencies also.
It also makes good publicity in this situation to get people interested in space exploration. Since part of nasa's on going mission is education and peaking the interest of young minds. As to encourage them to become interested in the sciences and hopefully contribute to them at some point.
Only if they also threw one at the Care Bear Stare....seem to recall that they all pushed a 'beam of lovingness' out of their chests....
...or something like that. I was only peripherally watching when the kids were small and I was not in the slightest bit interested in scouring the internet for details and having that show up in my browsing history.
Exactly, although I assume it has some form of autonomy, it did seem very jerky at doing simple tasks so it can't have a very advanced AI or very precise remote control...
I would love to see this integrated with a decent VR suit, get rid of some of the cameras in exchange for pressure sensors and then allow a true telepresence system for dangerous situation...
...for construction and other heavy duty outdoors work, wheeled or multilegged robots are better. Instead of having a humanoid robot drive the forklift, make the forklift autonomous.
Humanoid robots are really a waste of effort, unless the idea is to give the Mars colonists robotic butlers.
I think the point of a humanoid robot is that it needs to be of a similar size to a human so that it can be put into a situation where there are humans without needing to make massive changes that may not even be possible to accommodate it.
In an environment where you can cater for a robot what you suggested makes sense as, in theory, it should be cheaper to add an AI brain to a forklift than it is to provide this robot, or the industrial robots on a production line. If on the other hand what you really need is an extra person that can be pulled out of storage occasionally when you need x, y, or z done and then they can go back into storage, this would be ideal.
> the point of a humanoid robot is that it needs to be of a similar size to a human so that it can be put into a situation where there are humans without needing to make massive changes
Yes, such as in houses, an environment designed around humans. (And I wasn't being glib about giving Mars colonists robotic butlers -- that might well be a good idea.)
In potentially dangerous mining or construction, this isn't the case; the only thing designed around humans in such situations are the machinery, so making the machinery autonomous would remove both humans and humanoid robots from the equation.
One might note that none of the dozen or so drones and robots used in the Fukushima nuclear power plant clean up are humanoid.
" Instead of having a humanoid robot drive the forklift, make the forklift autonomous."
And for safety's sake, have the forks fold up and out of the way unless actually in use.
Human-piloted forklifts kill more people in warehousing setups than everything else put together. Robotic ones might well be a significant safety step forward.
> Robotic ones might well be a significant safety step forward
It would. Robotic forklifts are already in fairly common use, and safety improves.
From a safety point of view, the big win will be the change to robotic cars. There's some 200 000 people killed or injured in UK traffic every year, and that will be significantly reduced. Ironically, even though the number of dead & wounded would probably be reduced by an order of magnitude or more, robotic cars are held back by legislation because it's unclear who'd be legally responsible for the remaining deaths/wounded.
"When the humans arrive, the robots and the humans will work together in conjunction building habs, laying foundations, and working together in a tight relationship,"
Or more likely because they have been left alone for so long, the first humans that arrive will get an arse kicking and then the robots will issue an edict stating that Mars is theirs, stay away.
They missed a trick with designing the 'soft covering' by making it only cover the limbs rather than the joints. If they also wrapped the cloth around the exposed joints they would protect them from ingress of dust, water etc. when moving through the hazardous environment. It would be ironic if after smashing through a brick wall to rescue some object, the robot seized up from all the brick dust clogging up its gears. Perhaps they could send a guy in to retrieve the robot.
The spec is perfect for a robotic soldier. Bad idea.
Imagine Bush Junior with an army of these at his command. No Americans die, he could have laid waste all of central Asia and the Middle East and nobody in the USA would really know. Or imagine Obama ordering the robots to run down random people in cards in Yemen and Pakistan: "Intel said there was a high probability the people we just had dismembered might not like the USA".
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