Reply #4: I have a choice between two for next week. [View All]

[Occulus]

I'm torn- I have yet to see a bad TEDTalk. There are so many good ones to choose from...

Ooops, make it three talks. And all three would promote discussion...

Speaking of which....


Why do the Mars rovers use wheels? Why am I envisioning planetary exploration robots that walk, the way these things do in the second talk? It would seem to me, on the rough, rugged terrain of Mars, feet- rather than wheels- would be a much better choice.

A robot using metal legs, using a design similar (if further evolved) to the design of the 'creatures' in the second talk, seems to me to be much better able to deal with the sorts of obstacles one would find on Mars. Such a robot would be able to explore a good deal of terrain, and- if powered by the wind, like we see in the second talk- should be able to last a good long time.

The "brain" he presents is ridiculously simple, but it works for the intended purpose. I can't imagine it would be too terribly difficult to design an exploration robot with similar autonomous capabilities. It would have to be a Transformer(tm) for the trip from Earth to Mars, though. I don't know how it might be designed so that it can survive the landing... nonetheless, I think this design could be used instead of wheels on rovers like the ones we have on Mars. It would be interesting to see how well it worked, in any case.