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Sure, it’s happened to all of us at one time or another… you’re strolling down the road minding you own business, and BAM! …you’re accosted by an angry, disembodied, giant robot arm that picks you up and thrashes you wildly through the air. In this modern age, that sort of thing just happens.
Well, a company called KUKA, which manufactures large industrial-grade robotic arms used in car making, has the crazy notion that people will part with their hard-earned money to deliberately experience this thrashing. And after watching the videos, my money and I started saying our goodbyes.
Their Robocoaster arm has a free range of high-speed movement in every direction for maximum aneurysm potential, up to about 5 meters per second, all while the “wrist” pivots sporadically in 360 degrees. This recipe reportedly makes for the fastest, most unpredictable ride you’ll ever crawl away from. Each ride is fully programmable for thousands of possible ride variations.
I’m sure it’s perfectly safe though, it’s operated by a Microsoft Windows operating system. Those never crash. Cough.
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By the way, I did the math, and that 4.9-meters-per-second converts to just a hair under 11 MPH. If you watch the video, it’s clear that the thing isn’t moving slowly, it’s swinging around pretty quickly, with some sudden changes of direction, and some decent G-forces. I’m sure they used meters-per-second because it just sounds wimpy to say “almost 11 miles per hour!”
I went on such a ride, that was programable for one’s particular liking on how rough a ride and what particular movements you wanted. It was in Denmark, in Legoland, and it was a two person ride my son loved it made me sick.
I’m sure this would make a great travelling exhibit here in the U.S. – don’t need all the space a traditional roller coaster requres.
Just great, another 6 ticket vomit comet, with the better than average ability to kill you just to add to the thrill.
No thanks, this old lady will stick to the merry go round or the incredably cool IMAX virtual rides.LOL
“BAM! …you’re accosted by an angry, disembodied, giant robot arm that picks you up and thrashes you wildly through the air.”
Usually I get accosted by unusually euphoric, disembodied, giant robot arms myself.
Sorry about commenting old articles… Old lady Tink may be right except for the “or”, it should be “and”. This robot merry-go-round seat has obtained a personal IMAX display since: http://www.kuka.com/germany/en/pressevents/news/NN_050907_TagDerDeutschenLuftfahrt.htm I tried it, was not extremely fun, as the thrashing through the air was actually feeble. With all the 6-axis degrees of freedom and the right movie all around me, I expect the thing to have potential for the absolute best crazy flight simulation ever without any sickening effects; alas, something felt downtuned severely for my mission.
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Rollercoasters are fun before age 10 for the thrill.
now skiing, even parachuting are the next level.
I hope that robtic arm is gonna really toss me & fast. Otherwise it just feels like driving school.
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//////////////////////Tink #4 October 12th, 2006 10:11 pm
Just great, another 6 ticket vomit comet, with the better than average ability to kill you just to add to the thrill.
No thanks, this old lady will stick to the merry go round or the incredably cool IMAX virtual rides.LOL////////////////////////////////////////////////
Don’t grow up. Is it really that moving?
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///////////////////////////// Alan Bellows #1 September 14th, 2005 3:55 pm
By the way, I did the math, and that 4.9-meters-per-second converts to just a hair under 11 MPH. If you watch the video, it’s clear that the thing isn’t moving slowly, it’s swinging around pretty quickly, with some sudden changes of direction, and some decent G-forces. I’m sure they used meters-per-second because it just sounds wimpy to say “almost 11 miles per hour!” ////////////////////////////////////
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oh well, I’ll stick to horses.
i think its because they recognized the metric system is superiour! u silly americans and you’re imperial system.
Actually using meters-per-second to compare with miles per hour is misleading. A true comparison would be 4.9 meters-per-second is equal to 16.08 feet-per-second. For miles-per-hour you would have 17.64 Kilometers-per-hour is equal to 10.93 miles-per-hour.
Actually the imperial system originated in Europe while the Metric System originated in the French Republic between 1793 and 1799.
Later around 1960, the International System of Units (SI – the Systeme Internationale d’Unites) was created and refined in France. This created a baseline metric system where units of measurement are internationally recognized and applied.
The company KUKA, is based in Augsburg, Germany while the company Robocoaster is in England. Germany converted to the metric system between 1868 to 1875 from the old Rhenish system.
So it would make sense that the values represented in Robocoaster’s literature would reflect the most commonly used measurement system for mechanical in those countries, otherwise metric.
Now England has been in turmoil over converting fully to the metric system for ages. The schools were to stop teaching the imperial system back in 1965 and only teach the metric system. They did not. Various retries occurred over the years with no luck. The last was to be fully changed over by 2010 with fines placed on any businesses that dared display or weigh with the old imperial system. This raised such a ruckus that the idea of a fully metric system in England was finally dropped and the country is still a bi-system of imperial and metric units.
Which is why you can still see road signs with miles on them rather than kilometres, get your usual delivery of pints of milk, or even order a pint in a pub rather than a liter.
Seems that the metric is not all it’s cracked up to be, though I do own a complete tool set representing both systems since I have machinery not just US made, but foreign manufactured as well.
The Don.
In my opinion, the metric system is better for doing math & science, but the standard/imperial system is better for estimations & visualizing a quantity. I’ve been thinking about this for awhile, and I think it’s not just a matter of familiarity…yes, I grew up with standard measurements, so I know them better, but I think it’s easier to divide a quantity into halves & quarters in your head, rather than using decimals. On the other hand, subtracting & multiplying fractions is a mathematical nightmare compared to the ease of decimals, and the system of metric prefixes for powers of 10 is an elegant solution.
Where the rubber meets the road for units of measurement, as far as I’m concerned, is in home building materials and the oral traditions of cooking. Industrial projects and recipe cooking would be better with metrics, because the math of scaling is easier.
But when someone explains how to make a dish, good’ol’fashin pinches, splashes, handfuls, teaspoons, cups, and the like are much easier for me to intuitively grasp than, say, 200mL.
Likewise, if I need to build a rabbit hutch, I think in terms of fingerwidths, handspans, inches, feet, and such. It’s not a math problem, or an efficiency analysis, so decimals offer little benefit to me in this case.
Although I think metric literacy is a worthwhile thing, I would not support efforts to eradicate the standard system from the US.