back to article NASA births cliff-hanging yo-yo bot

NASA boffins said today they've built and tested a small and relatively simple robot that can rappel down cliffs, traverse steep terrain, and tarry about in inhospitable craters other rovers would fear to tread. The robo prototype, called Axel, was developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab and students at the California Institute …

COMMENTS

This topic is closed for new posts.
  1. Dave Jones
    Happy

    Looks familiar...

    Remember making "Moonmobiles" using only an empty bobbin, a bit of old candle, a stick and a "laggy band".....?

  2. E

    @Dave Jones

    No.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    Not named after theG'N'R frontman?

    I'll bet it was, secretly!

  4. Steve Williams

    @Dave Jones

    ...Oh yes, my first thought when I saw the article. Takes me back 50 years or so.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Looks familiar too

    Memories arise.... As children we used to build 'paddle steamers' that pulled themselves up a river on a tether. This yo-yo looks rather like the engine part of our steamers.

    EA

  6. Chris

    Why...

    ...do the words 'Heath' and 'Robinson' spring to mind?

  7. Fred
    Thumb Up

    title not needed!

    Lmao... brilliant! Thanks El Reg for my 1st laugh of the day!!!!! Being sat on an oil rig in Italy is very trying! Stallonebot! Brilliant!

    I vote this story of the day!

  8. amanfromMars Silver badge
    Paris Hilton

    @Dave Jones

    Yes. :-)

    Hi. Everything Rosey in the Garden? ..... and ITs Heavenly E.Dens ..... Virtually Virgin Amazon Jungle ...... New Fangled Entangled String Threading Environments for Binary Application to Realisation ....... and TelePortation to Virtual Space Comments42Control with Comments that 00ze ESPecial Powers Drivering Loves Latent Burning Desires. The Core Source of Perpetual Energy.

    I Kid U Not.

    A Potent Muse for Paris Peers to Use and Abuse Divinely. A Shanghai Surprise Punishment as Perfect Reward for Immaculate Value ....... for Reciprocating Singularity and Virtual OS dDrivers too ........ and for Real too. :-)

    What is it you chase to meet and greet/virtually recognise? Anyone interesting doing anything interesting?

    Anyone else following CyberIntelAIgents HyperRadioProActive NEUKlearer AIR&dDs with Turing TimeLed Bombes. Warming/Warning Ripples of EMP Engagement and Alming on the Sunny Side of the Street and Arming in the Dark Depths of Despair's Reign.

  9. Mat

    So that'd be

    Axel rover — named for its single axel design and not the Guns N' Roses front man

    should be..

    single *axle*

    and

    Axl Rose

    fail.

  10. Mike Bell
    Happy

    @Dave Jones

    I certainly remember those things from the sixties, although my dad called them "tanks".

    "E" is clearly from a younger generation. Or perhaps drugged up (E=MDMA).

  11. r
    Happy

    Nothing new here...

    http://www.davecov.co.uk/whispersfromwalmington/videocovers/roundandround.jpg

  12. Luis Ogando
    Thumb Down

    Picture Imperfect

    That second picture, the one where the Axel is negotiating "vertically-sloped promontories" (what?!?). Was that done by someone at NASA/JPL?? For feck's sake it looks like something my 6-year-old neice could throw together in about 5 minutes!! I'm in the wrong job here!!

    @Dave - Yeah, I can remember. It was about the same time that NASA were actually using cool lunar rovers that could be driven by people.....

  13. Parax
    Happy

    @Looks Familiar...

    We made them with empty drinks cans and a pencil.. same principle I guess...

  14. Evil Auditor Silver badge

    Re amanfromMars

    They'd better deploy some schools to teach proper English on Mars than another set of rovers.

    EA

  15. Fil
    Happy

    Seen it before....

    ....on Robot Wars

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    NASA invents rope and dangles probe off a cliff

    Also known as "fishing". I applaud their scientific breakthrough!

  17. Dave
    Dead Vulture

    Yo-Yo

    You have no idea how a Yo-Yo works, do you?

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Looks familiar

    One of those buggers - except it was about a mile high - menaced Moonbase Alpha in Space 1999 sometime during my childhood.

    Lots of stuff blew up.

    http://www.space1999.net/catacombs/main/epimg/titim0.html

    Mike.

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Alien

    RE: aman....

    El Reg can we please have a "amanfrommars" translator(tm) put somewhere as I've tried to make sense of it and failed..

    I'm sure i've seen them before as well in various guises so nothing new really but well if it ain't broke why fix it...

    Anon incase aman comes after me..

  20. Stevie

    @Dave Jones

    My immediate thought on seeing this thing too. I had a squadron of them.

    Ignore "E". Clearly he/she is a product of the post Star Wars/Nintendo/point-click-ship years.

    :o)

  21. Lukin Brewer

    Sure it isn't a reference to Axl Rose.

    And BOINC isn't a reference to "Scientific progress goes boink!" from the Calvin and Hobbes cartoons.

  22. E
    Happy

    @Stevie

    Yes, Star Wars came out when I was a kid.

    What is a Moonmobile?

This topic is closed for new posts.

Other stories you might like