Beautiful video with an update on the evolutionary development (up to 2021)
Strandbeest
71–80 of 114 posts
Re: Strandbeest
#72I can remember first seeing these in Theo’s 2007 Ted Talk. I must have drawn than linkage about 10,000 times over the next few years. I always had big dreams of raiding dad’s plumbing supplies to make a version of one.
Re: Strandbeest
#73OK I'll be the one. Not sure why these get so much love. Sure they're cool-looking untethered kites but all the nonsense about "creating new forms of life" - really?
It's lore. Superman is also cool-looking and the whole story around it just adds depth; no one thinks it's real.
Re: Strandbeest
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, but walking on rough terrain would still keep it a rough terrain.
Rough terrain with less and less purchase, until it just turns into a pile of dry dust / wet mud (depending on weather). A legged vehicle as heavy as a car would wear away stone, tear roots… I don't think there's any surface that could withstand heavy traffic, except maybe something ridiculous like a fast-growing woody grass.
For some reason, I was imagining a machine with legs like a footstool. Any realistic machine like this would have large, wide feet. With proper suspension, the pressure might be low enough to not completely destroy the ground.
Though, I'm struggling to see how this would be better than a wheeled vehicle: you've still got static friction between the feet and the ground… I guess maybe they're flexing less?
Re: Strandbeest
#75OK I'll be the one. Not sure why these get so much love. Sure they're cool-looking untethered kites but all the nonsense about "creating new forms of life" - really?
I think its a cool exploration between art and engineering, with the end effect looking lifelike and emergent. It reminds me of the game of life.
But yeah the peanut gallery with 30k in hn karma probably have something snarky to say about it.
Re: Strandbeest
#76OK I'll be the one. Not sure why these get so much love. Sure they're cool-looking untethered kites but all the nonsense about "creating new forms of life" - really?
That’s just interesting lore.
It's PR gobbledygook he made up to make these seem more interesting than the mechanical tumbleweeds that they are.
Re: Strandbeest
#77In the video there clearly is a line being pulled from the right. Was the wind insufficient that day? It seems like cheating.
Re: Strandbeest
#78[dead]
Re: Strandbeest
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, but walking on rough terrain would still keep it a rough terrain.
> one big upside is that you can theoretically avoid the rubber/microplastic particulate emission associated with tires and wheeled vehicles if you can make legged vehicles as good as wheeled ones. How does keeping rough terrain rough help with that?
My implication is that you want rubber for nice asphalt/road surface to avoid damaging it — for comfort, other suspension components can help out instead.
If you don't care about preserving the terrain (which you can when it's rough to begin with), you can just go with large surface metal feet and you should not get any rubber/microplastics, though you will get metallic dust.
Re: Strandbeest
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
Rough terrain with less and less purchase, until it just turns into a pile of dry dust / wet mud (depending on weather). A legged vehicle as heavy as a car would wear away stone, tear roots… I don't think there's any surface that could withstand heavy traffic, except maybe something ridiculous like a fast-growing woody grass.
For some reason, I was imagining a machine with legs like a footstool. Any realistic machine like this would have large, wide feet. With proper suspension, the pressure might be low enough to not completely destroy the ground. Though, I'm struggling to see how this would be better than a wheeled vehicle: you've still got static friction between the feet and the ground… I guess maybe they're flexing less?
Yeah, large feet would reduce the pressure on the ground, though it would still suffer some effects for sure — but the goal is to avoid rubber and microplastics, so metal feet it is :)
Anyway, I agree that a wheeled vehicle is probably going to win on efficiency just the same, though wheels do require better roads than legs do (eg. common example is stairs).