Friday, March 26, 2010

Welcome to Hoth

Of course you're familiar with the At-At Walkers from the Star Wars franchise...
...but you might not realize just how close we are to actually building them.
From today's Big Picture at Boston.com, Robots. The caption for the real walker is
"Boston Dynamics' quadruped robot named BigDog, designed to help soldiers carry heavy equipment in the field, climbs a snowy hillside. (Boston Dynamics)"

The Big Picture has really been a run for the last week; each one of the last four has been of interest to me:
Haiti, 70 Days Later (3/24)
World Water Day (3/22)
Record Setters (3/19)

The lead picture at that last one is mind-blowing:
He Pingping of China smiles as Sultan Kosen of Turkey rests his hands on He's shoulders during a promotional event in Istanbul, Turkey on January 14, 2010. He, with a height of 73 cm (2 feet 5 inch), and Kosen, with a height of 246.5 cm (8 feet 1 inch), have been listed in the Guinness World Records as the world's shortest man and tallest man respectively. (REUTERS/Osman Orsal)
Sadly, He Pingping died earlier this month, but I've seen several photos from this meeting. They are amazing.

2 comments:

Jennifer said...

Oh, cool. My daughter asked me about the tallest (and strongest and a few other) people in the world last week and I hadn't looked it up yet. Thanks!

Oakland Cranes said...

Bandwidth for image provided by Star Wars AT AT Walkers Port of Oakland Cranes