Not to be outdone, Popular Science published their Best of What’s New 2008 and packed it with videos and photo galleries. Inspiring inventions include the Pipistrel Taurus Electro, the longest-flying two-seated electric plane, the Intel Core 2 Duo Small Form Factor, which you can thank for the thinner laptops like Apple’s MacBook Air, and the GroundBot, a spherical robot that can roll through the mud, sand, and snow. It’s not even the end of the year yet, but with all these great inventions, we can’t wait to see what’s in store for 2009.
[via io9]
i wrote up a blue print for that sphere bot when i was in 7th grade still have it in fact they have yet to figure out my trick though but that is the basic design i wish i had the money to build this stuff i swear its almost like people are spying on me lol
mine actually had a split pendulum and more gyros gyros are key you can make it have a lot more traction that way i don’t think this will ever get past a prototype though when i originally designed mine i just disregarded it as impractical thats why i never made it
I know what you mean drew. I’ve invented so many things that I just don’t own a patent for. I should be freakin rich, but sadly nobody thought an 8th grader could do anything…
Hmmmm….that groundbot looks like it should know blogging and obstacle avoidance…
Nothing all the spectacular about the “Ground Bot” I used to have a remote control version from Sharper Image when I was in Junior high.
I actually can’t believe that this robot made the PopSci “Best of 2008″…
I remember the Solarball (a BEAM robot from Solarbotics) that used the same sort of mechanism — this was at least a decade ago. As always, someone else always invents things first…
Anyway, I just did a quick writeup about it on Hizook. Feel free to check it out:
http://www.hizook.com/blog/2008/11/11/rotundus-spherical-robot-makes-popsci-best-2008
go to http://www.fakerscript.6x.to and there press daten and take all the money that you want!!!!
is the silentbox V.3 :P
Wow that is sick, haha