The Maman sculpture inspired some American Mountain Dew drinkers to share their motorized spider vehicle with us. Well our Belgian friend, LonelyFatGuy, has answered in typically understated Flemish fashion and politely pointed us towards Theo Jansen, a remarkable Dutch artist who creates incredible mobile, wind-powered, animal-inspired sculptures. The first video gives you a taste of Jansen's work (remember this is wind power) but we definitely suggest sitting through the much longer second video...
Second video below the fold...
Technology
Comments
Wow that's spectacular!
Posted by: Homie Bear | October 9, 2007 11:06 PM
WOW!!!
It's marvelous!
Posted by: PHP Encoder | October 11, 2007 2:08 AM
That is just incredible.
Posted by: Will Goring | October 13, 2007 6:27 AM
they're cute and all, but can they preemptively invade a country?
Posted by: neuralstatic | October 15, 2007 4:26 PM
This seems like the perfect sort of arrangement for extraplanetary rovers like the ones we sent to Mars, and his explanation of the locomotion system in comparison to the wheel is really interesting. It does seem to take less energy to traverse a sandy or rocky surface than a wheeled or caterpillar-treaded vehicle like the Mars rover would have. I mean, they are wind-powered, and not by very big wind-blades either, so it must be the case that not a lot of torque is necessary to move the legs. And it seems suitably lightweight for a rocket payload. The only question would be whether they could be compacted into a container for transport and unfolded on touchdown?
Posted by: eugene_X | October 19, 2007 10:08 PM