I think the engineers at Boston Dynamics relish in creating creepy bots...the ones you may have nightmares over after watching late night and alone on YouTube...they always create robotic self-transporting machinations that mimic the hyper abilities of certain insects or animals...the abilities that naturally set them apart from other less talented creatures...
The first case, is BD's RHex Rough Terrain Robot. This device has spinning circular shaped legs, whose inspiration came from the oldest insects to inhabit the earth, our favorite, ordinary cockroaches. This bot can walk over the roughest land on this planet, while not skipping a step or even looking the least bit defeated through adversity...much like a real cockroach.
The latter bot is called Sand Flea...and has the ability to catapult itself in the air, almost 30 ft., like a, you guessed it, Sand Flea, then make a softer than normal landing on the ground below, oriented right side up...where it's off again to its next destination.
Something about the way the way BD films their bots in action...the loud inner-workings of the devices combined with harsh movement over rocks and concrete... and the way it feels like they have an agenda...make you feel like you may be the object of their destination...where a barrel in them might open up and begin fire or a launcher suddenly discloses itself and sends a mini-rocket propelled grenade towards our being...
They remind me, in a funnier way, like the toy robot in John Landis' Kentucky Fried Movie (1977) surprising its victim but first exclaiming "Eat Lead Sucker!!" or more like the little Zuni doll in "Trilogy of Terror" movie (1975)....who can forget the freaked out Karen Black throwing the crazed doll in a suitcase and locking it shut, only to have it grab a knife and start cutting its way out from the inside out?).
Either way, thanks Boston Dynamics! Your military innovation and development today, inspiring the horror movies of tomorrow!
* This article funded by the SuperPac "Making Today Better Than Yesterday, Yesterday"...not affiliated in any way with Stephen Colbert's SuperPac "Making a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow"
