🚀 go-pugleaf

One of the big advantages of walking vs. rolling or crawling (snake) 
concerns contact with the environment.  A rolling or snake-like
locomotor is in constant contact with its environment and therefore
subject to constraints this imposes.  A walking machine makes
intermittent contact with the environment and thus the impact of
environment constraints can be minimized.  The application of
snake-like locomotors could be quite extensive and I believe the
Japanese have something going in this area.  They do have some
existing mechanisms in the snake-like manipulator area.

My background is in locomotor design and fabrication with all of
them falling into the wheeled arena.  Yet, I still see the future
being legged locomotion of one type or another.  Significan insight
can be gained by examining nature - she/he/it has been working in
this area a lot longer than man and has done the job a heck of a
lot better.  For locomotion on land, nature predominantly uses legs.
Only after man figured out how to modify his environment (roads,
paths, etc) did wheels become viable.

I personally feel there is quite a bit of pettiness amongst this
netgroup which detracts from the possible goals.  I do not believe
in the truly general machine .... nature says evolve with your
environment and optimize.  Therefore I believe that almost all
configurations have their place whether they are large, small,
wheeled, legged, jumping, flying, etc.  Too much fingerpointing
goes on here - CMU this, JPL that and on and on.

I find the ultra-small locomotors interesting, but I am undecided
if they are really reality at this snapshot in time.  Hopefully,
the pettiness will end and this netgroup will truly become a place
where ideas can be discussed.  Some people are using this netgroup
for this purpose and others are taking potshots.  Also, people are
right when they say that JPL and CMU spent significant time examining
the alternatives before settling on something.  It is always easy
to criticize once a stand has been taken, but a stand must be taken
for anything to reach fruition.


Sorry for the lecture, its been a bad day....

--
Kerien Fitzpatrick
Field Robotics Center
The Robotics Institute
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
(412)268-6564
Internet: fitz@frc2.frc.ri.cmu.edu