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Footage of giant RX-78 Gundam in Yokohama undergoing movement testing

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Re: Footage of giant RX-78 Gundam in Yokohama undergoing movement testing

#21

Post by justicezyx »

I cannot help to lament in the lack of ambition from Japanese people nowadays.

They seem content with cute ideas which has little relevance to major global problems and tech advancement. They still have a top notch scientific and research system, and produce great results every year.

But they seem completely lost the drive for building the actual things that can affect people.

Put this in perspective, aside from a fan service, and commercial benefits, what’s the point of a actual size gundam model that can move?

Re: Footage of giant RX-78 Gundam in Yokohama undergoing movement testing

#22

Post by leptons »

Animats wrote: post #10
jml7c5 wrote: post #4

AFAIK this is not intended to be free-standing. It is more like a large puppet held up at the waist.

Yes, as you can see if you watch carefully. That's disappointing. Legged locomotion technology is far enough along to make that work standalone. Maybe they could get Softbank to get them some consultants from Boston Dynamics. BD has gone to electric robots, so the people who did the hydraulic machines may be available.

If you didn't notice, most of the footage was shown at 4x speed, or 2x speed. It's extremely slow to move any part of this monstrosity. There is no way it would be capable of walking freely with the slowness of the mechanics. It's a completely different story at this scale, Boston Dynamics doesn't have a way to make that work.

Re: Footage of giant RX-78 Gundam in Yokohama undergoing movement testing

#23

Post by chrischen »

mattlondon wrote: post #18
mahesh_rm wrote: post #2

It is interesting to think of a future where wars between countries could be fought through duels between "champion robots" with no loss of innocent people's lives. EDIT: I didn't expect this comment to be controversial/downvoted, and it is interesting that it is evoking some level of passive aggressive sarcasm.

This is the same idea as letting two sides play chess and see who wins. It might work for trivial matters, but when the stakes are high and the chips are down human nature is always going to lead to force to get what is important. "Ok so our robot beat your robot on some contrived fight. We're going to invade your country with a population of millions, take all of your money and possessions and force you all to work…

Well if our robots beat your robots in killing each other, the logical next step is that the robots would kill the human opponents. So it’s not quite like a contrived chess game if the humans are reasonably inferior fighting machines.

It’s more like proxy battles, and in real life we do this with expendable humans rather than robots. When a side decides to surrender it’s not necessarily when the last person is wiped out... usually done when the military is near or close to defeat.

OP is suggesting that one day robots could outclass flesh and bone humans so much that real humans will be like the women and children of past society that will not have to fight in real battles.

Re: Footage of giant RX-78 Gundam in Yokohama undergoing movement testing

#24

Post by sdenton4 »

082349872349872 wrote: post #13
mahesh_rm wrote: post #2

It is interesting to think of a future where wars between countries could be fought through duels between "champion robots" with no loss of innocent people's lives. EDIT: I didn't expect this comment to be controversial/downvoted, and it is interesting that it is evoking some level of passive aggressive sarcasm.

I'm thinking a china vs. india epic dance battle would be a good way to address the border issue. For cyprus, the greeks and turks could just speed up the music until some team loses the beat. Spratly islands could be sorted with synchronised swimming? Bonus clips: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twbuT1V5mFE&t=10 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_e2igZexpMs

I mean, this is kinda what the olympics does, right? Show off how good you are at making soldier-like people, celebrate some nationalism, acknowledge that the other countries are also humans capable of training good soldier-like people, and then everyone goes home and continues trading.

Re: Footage of giant RX-78 Gundam in Yokohama undergoing movement testing

#25

Post by TaylorAlexander »

chrischen wrote: post #23
mattlondon wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the same idea as letting two sides play chess and see who wins. It might work for trivial matters, but when the stakes are high and the chips are down human nature is always going to lead to force to get what is important. "Ok so our robot beat your robot on some contrived fight. We're going to invade your country with a population of millions, take all of your money and possessions and force you all to work…

Well if our robots beat your robots in killing each other, the logical next step is that the robots would kill the human opponents. So it’s not quite like a contrived chess game if the humans are reasonably inferior fighting machines. It’s more like proxy battles, and in real life we do this with expendable humans rather than robots. When a side decides to surrender it’s not necessarily when the last person is wiped…

It’s already like that today. The robots are unmanned aircraft with missiles. The US kills a fair amount of people using this method, though it is not widely reported.

https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/05/14/122732/

Re: Footage of giant RX-78 Gundam in Yokohama undergoing movement testing

#26

Post by mft_ »

justicezyx wrote: post #21

I cannot help to lament in the lack of ambition from Japanese people nowadays. They seem content with cute ideas which has little relevance to major global problems and tech advancement. They still have a top notch scientific and research system, and produce great results every year. But they seem completely lost the drive for building the actual things that can affect people. Put this in perspective, aside from a fa…

Out of interest, since you’re in a mood to generalise, which nation’s people are worthy of your respect for their ambition and focus?

Re: Footage of giant RX-78 Gundam in Yokohama undergoing movement testing

#27

Post by baybal2 »

leptons wrote: post #22
Animats wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, as you can see if you watch carefully. That's disappointing. Legged locomotion technology is far enough along to make that work standalone. Maybe they could get Softbank to get them some consultants from Boston Dynamics. BD has gone to electric robots, so the people who did the hydraulic machines may be available.

If you didn't notice, most of the footage was shown at 4x speed, or 2x speed. It's extremely slow to move any part of this monstrosity. There is no way it would be capable of walking freely with the slowness of the mechanics. It's a completely different story at this scale, Boston Dynamics doesn't have a way to make that work.

Yes, even if they wanted to, making joints which can withstand such dynamic loads, while being small, and lightweight will be a giant engineering challenge.

60t static load, now imagine how big will it be when it walks.

Re: Footage of giant RX-78 Gundam in Yokohama undergoing movement testing

#28

Post by emptyfile »

Animats wrote: post #10
jml7c5 wrote: post #4

AFAIK this is not intended to be free-standing. It is more like a large puppet held up at the waist.

Yes, as you can see if you watch carefully. That's disappointing. Legged locomotion technology is far enough along to make that work standalone. Maybe they could get Softbank to get them some consultants from Boston Dynamics. BD has gone to electric robots, so the people who did the hydraulic machines may be available.

>Legged locomotion technology is far enough along to make that work standalone.

Says you?

Re: Footage of giant RX-78 Gundam in Yokohama undergoing movement testing

#29

Post by lloeki »

alfalfasprout wrote: post #9
jml7c5 wrote: post #4

AFAIK this is not intended to be free-standing. It is more like a large puppet held up at the waist.

well, this is the first step no?

Indeed, baby steps. At first I thought it was CGI because of the feet-induced cognitive dissonance but then I saw the waist-level support moving in the shadow behind.

Still fascinating to see this towering thing in motion. I was never into Gundam, but Macross Plus had me hooked, and this brings back memories such as this scene:

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/SMMRs5ZIqd0/

Those YF-19 and YF-21 are still the best { variable fighters U mecha } designs to my eyes: simple, elegant, believable, futuristic yet practical.

https://opuszine.us/_assets/stills/macross-plus.jpg

In hindsight there are so many anticipatory things in Macross Plus, it’s really good SF trying to reason from first principles: AR virtual canopies, neural link operated plane, deep AI generated musical arrangement from simple human composition, Kessler syndrome, drone vs human presence on the battlefield, overall human relevance in the face of emergent AGI...

Re: Footage of giant RX-78 Gundam in Yokohama undergoing movement testing

#30

Post by NalNezumi »

It's cool and all but... wasn't it made to be a project to show off at Olympics? The project seems to be fairly delayed if that's the case.

In any case, I really hope this project didn't receive ridiculous amount of funding. Japan used to be the absolute no 1 when it comes to robotics about 20 years ago, and have then been losing ground since. I hope the policy maker and people holding the money realize that it is far more valuable to take that lead back than create a big moving totem pole of the past that people can dance around.

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