Even if you don't feel like reading the whole article, do yourself a favor and skip down to the video of the final product at the very end. It's delightful and put a big smile on my face. The fact that all the modern technology is hidden inside leaving only the wooden structure visible makes it magical, like something from Harry Potter.
This is beautiful; the motion of the legs reminds me of some giant scuttling insect. I'd love to have a coffee table like that. I wouldn't even want the motor, actually. It looks like you can just push it and have it walk smoothly, as if pushing a table with fixed-orientation wheels.
Some people are just so creative... It stole me a good laugh seeing the Carpentopod facilitating beer and chips to its master only to park politely (but not silently!) side to its less capable static fellow. I want to see more of these fantastic creations!
I can't wait for someone to make a 3d-printable version of this. I would totally print out a 20cm tall version of this to use as a food serving platform on my dinner table!
Is there a place where one can buy pre-built leg parts or even pre-assembled legs? That seems like the most difficult part, then attaching them onto stuff I can do too.
"Since this post has gone public, many people have asked me if they could get one as well. I’m currently not making these on demand. However, I’ve decided to release the Carpentopod linkage itself as public domain. So if you have the skills, feel free to use the details below to build your own set of legs!"
> To select which ones were best, each variation got assigned a ‘fitness’ score based on its walking speed, clearance and material use. I also rewarded extra points to variants that had leg tips which moved more horizontally and more smoothly during the lowest third of their cycle to make it favor solutions in which a group of three legs would work together to minimize bobbing and foot slip.
I am not sure what approach was used here, it sounds like RL or maybe just simulations. I am not sure I’d say this is AI.
There’s no clear definition currently, but based on my work in IEEE standards and my own research, I always define AI as an autonomous system which determines paths to its desired outcomes using multimodal inputs.
While I think the computation system described in this post is very cool and sophisticated, I liken it more to a computation engine. It seems to me that computation engines follow an algorithm to determine optimal paths to a previously determined and fixed desired outcome, but they don’t update the outcome goal based on new information.
If the computation engine described in this post could use existing information to form its own goal or idea of a desired outcome, then I’d say it’s AI.
I’d love to do a blog post on this idea because I am sure many might have good reasons to disagree with it. It would be cool if someone else does it, I’d love to provide feedback as I don’t have the time for longform writing.
Seriously, I wonder if anyone at IKEA is aware of it? And if not how can we get the message to the right person. I'm sure IKEA could do this and integrate it into the TRÅDFRI system.
