If you thought the recently-unveiled Honda self-balancing motorcycle concept at CES is creepy, wait until you see the next nightmare inducing robot that uses two wheels to move around.
As with most of the other creepy self-balancing robots we’ve seen so far, this new oddity comes straight from Boston Dynamics. It looks just like their earlier bipedal projects, but this one comes with a twist (pun intended).
Instead of having some sort of mechanical stuff that resembles feet, the new prototype robot uses wheels and electric motors. But that’s not all, as the beast’s knees are backward and the upper limbs resemble those of a horse.
The hellspawn obviously has nothing to resemble a head and is moving around in a very weird way by rolling on the wheels and using its backward knees to keep its balance.
To make things even worse, the company has dubbed its new creation the “Handle”. Why? Well, it’s not because it acts as a knob, but because it was created to handle heavy stuff while occupying a small footprint.
According to company founder Marc Raibert, the Handle is actually “an experiment in combining wheels with legs, with a very dynamic system that is balancing itself all the time and has a lot of knowledge of how to throw its weight around.”
According to me, this is a waste of time and money, and it should be called “Satan’s Butler”, but who am I to pick on this science novelty?
Looking at the video below, it looks like this beast hasn’t been officially revealed yet to the public, and the footage appears to have been taken from an investor presentation.
Why would someone invest in such oddities? Some believe these robots will be used in the military, but if you ask me, the biped position is the worst and most limited form of transportation a creature could use.
Skip to 3:45 to see "Wheelie the Spook" in action.
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