Every now and then someone gets seriously inspired, and that urge just doesn’t go away until something gets created. For [Paulius Liekis], it led to creating a roughly 1:20 scale version of the T08A2 Hexapod “Spider” Tank from the movie Ghost in the Shell. As the he puts it, “[T]his was something that I wanted to build for a long time and I just had to get it out of my system.” It uses two Raspberry Pi computers, 28 servo motors, and required over 250 hours of 3D printing for all the meticulously modeled pieces – and even more than that for polishing, filing, painting, and other finishing work on the pieces after they were printed. The paint job is spectacular, with great-looking wear and tear. It’s even better seeing it in motion — see the video embedded below.
The tank uses custom software to handle gait control, and there is also a Unity 3D pipeline for modeling and playing back sequences of poses (animations) derived from a 3D model. The tank can be controlled via PS3 joystick, but it also has some degree of autonomy in that it can detect and track faces.
The information on the site doesn’t go too deeply into the nitty-gritty technical details, but there are plenty of excellent photos of the construction process.
This isn’t the first time someone has been inspired by Ghost in the Shell; we’ve also seen a working Tachikoma made with LEGO that drives and walks just like in the show.
Fans might recognize poses and movements done in the video as being re-created from scenes in the show.
Well spotted, sir :) It actually roughly 1 to 1 sequence – both robot moves and camera angles. It’s just Motoko shots removed.
Camera angles too? That’s some real attention to detail!
This needs to remove the servo sounds that kill the mood, apart from that, it’s nice.
Fail enough. I though leaving the servo sounds in, because makes it more realistic. Otherwise it almost becomes CGI :) I have a few gifs and thus no sound as an alternative :)
I’ve never seen the show/game. I like the servo noise. Makes it harder for it to sneak up on me! I usually skip these articles but something, I’m not sure, caught my attention.
I want it. It would gaurd my garden from the chickens and the raccoons!
You should be able to deaden the noise easily. A little foam goes a long way! Nice monster that you have made. ;) My cat and dog would run away if they saw that!
“My cat and dog would run away if they saw that!”
_I_ would run away if I saw that! Actually, I would hit it with a stick first, THEN run away. Creepy. Well done.
Maybe you could lower the frequency of the audio to get that big machine sound?
Or make it heavy enough for the booming THUMP from putting its legs down, as is the case of its bigger brother!
It already weights ~5kg, which hardly can be handled by these chinese servos :)
*raises hand*
ADD the thump noise with a speaker!
Seriously, this is win all the way!
I love the hexapod!
A great job hiding all the servos and the cables.
+1
I forgot it was a machine!
I mean, come on. It sounds like a rattlesnake!
I walk away when I hear rattling…
first rate, bravo!
Very nice, and the motion is very spider like, very creepy.
That thing looks alive. I had a “KILL THE BUG” reflex.
you will need “Your standard really big gun”
Like!
BFG FTW!
I’m sorry, I couldn’t read this just because it said movie. While there are several movies, GitS will always be a TV serial anime. Their on what the 5th series of the show now, with each series having at least 3 seasons.
Great job to the guy for making the robotic prop, but :( to the author of this article.
Don’t blame the author – the mistake would be mine.
I have to admit I don’t understand what the problem is: this particular robot is actually from the first GITS movie (1995). It wasn’t featured in any of the series, so I don’t really get what the problem is…
Ghost in the shell will always be a TV series?
Turn in your nerd card and leave! You’re no longer welcome here.
derp. GitS is a GRAPHIC NOVEL. Movie? TV serial.. pfffffffffft
But seriously.. the best way to enjoy Masamune is by reading. Prolific note taker and science geek. The graphic novels are littered with comments and references which support his science fiction as science fact.
The MOVIES have the best animated artwork anywhere.
It’s a shame that now all Shirow does is draw bizarre fetish porn, and he’s never going to finish Appleseed book 5 even if he lives to be 200. (And even if he did, I’d almost be afraid to read the resulting book at this point.) ;__;
Except the part where Oshii’s movie _is_ officially titled ‘Ghost in the Shell’, taking its name from the SUB-title of the original manga ‘Koukaku Kidoutai: The Ghost in the Shell’, and the TV series is called ‘Koukaku Kidoutai: Stand Alone Complex’. (Though the influence of Western rights holders has muddied the waters when it comes to the usage of the two titles over the years.)
And while the current batch of anime fans were probably in diapers (if alive at all) when Stand Alone Complex was airing, Oshii’s film adaptation came out _twenty-one years ago_ so would you please just not spout nonsense? (Even if the man’s GitS movies don’t do the source material justice and he should stick to Patlabor.)
I have neither the time nor inclination to point out all the other errors you made, but I might suggest that next time you try to be condescending you make sure you have some idea what you’re talking about first.
This is Fu****g amazing!
OFFTOPIC: Is vimeo working for anyone in firefox (for linux) ?
It’s almost half year it stopped working, noone brother at vimeo fixing it?
I have no idea. I don’t use Linux (yet).
But my Google-fu is working today. I found this:
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=206285
Is complete gibberish to me, but the forum has ideas.
Good luck!
Works fine for me on Debian Jessie using Iceweasel (Firefox) 38.8.0, no Flash plugin. I believe Vimeo is in the process of converting all their videos to HTML5, but will still try to serve Flash in some situations. Maybe that’s the issue?
Worked fine for me. Are you still using Flash?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mS3PGKUiSco
Here you go.
Now this needs to be scaled up a bit more and would be awesome to have walking around your house.
I would absolutely die to have a cute blue think tank with an Amazon Echo or Siri like cloud based system to have a little gidgit to have around the house.
3D Print files ?? :) :) and code …. :D