Hasta La Gadget!

Robots are here to stay, or so it seems. There is a robot known as CHIMP which is human sized, and it is the result of a collaboration by Carnegie Mellon’s University’s National Robotics Engineering Center in Lawrenceville. The CHIMP robot will participate in a disaster response contest, standing tall at 5 feet and 2 inches, weighing in at 400 pounds. It will come equipped with two sets of arms and legs each, and cost over $3 million to develop.

Eric Meyhofer, someone who is part of the CHIMP robot team, shared, “When we have an event, and we can’t send in humans because it’s a bad scene, these are the things that can make a difference and keep you out of harm’s way.” Where does CHIMP come into the equation? CHIMP is meant to respond to disasters, whether natural or unnatural, and that would include a nuclear plant meltdown, or a collapse of buildings after an earthquake and tsunami. CHIMP is able to turn valves, clear debris, travel rough terrain and even grab a fire hose as and when required. Will it come out tops in the DARPA-organized contest? Only time will be able to tell, of course, so we shall just sit tight and wait.

CHIMP Robot To Compete In Disaster Response Contest original content from Ubergizmo.

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University are working on a rescue robot that can take on both humanoid and tank forms like a Transformer. No word on whether it is a Decepticon or an Autobot. It’s called CHIMP (CMU Highly Intelligent Mobile Platform) and it can work like a human (or monkey) when it needs to climb a ladder and such. But if the terrain gets rough, it can drop onto all fours, switch on its motorized treads, and become a tank.

In that form CHIMP can traverse disaster areas and seek out survivors. The robot is being developed by CMU for the DARPA Robotics Challenge. The goal of the Robotics Challenge is to take disaster response robots to the next level, making them capable of doing just about anything a human can do.

As part of the challenge, robots must be able to do everything from driving across rubble, to climbing a ladder, to breaking through concrete, to repairing a leaking pipe.

The key to this is flexibility. Sometimes two legs are better, other times four is what you need. I can’t wait to see where this goes. Thankfully, it will be some time yet before these flexible bots enslave us.

[via Geekosystem]