
New Ball Prototype - chaostheory
http://blog.gearbox.me/prototype/new-ball-prototype/
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run4yourlives
Cool... but here's how my evil military trained mind works.

1\. "Ball" has core of C4, surrounded by wire, etc. (i.e. it's a grenade with
a bigger bang)

2\. Add increased range.

3\. Add ability to "bounce" (for stairs, etc)

4\. Add firing mechanism.

You now have a movable, controllable grenade. Ideal use: Room clearance. Turn
ball on, roll into target room, bounce to waist height, activate.

You could easily modify this with CS gas or such for lower lethality options.

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sdurkin
Add acoustic sensors to triangulate enemy positions, coordinate with aerial
surveillance, add ability for aerial drop to be deployed across battlefield,
add control moment gyros to allow it traverse difficult terrain.

You could have them roll back to a base point for self-charging. To make them
airborne you could embed the standard model in a quad-rotor "collar" and use
the rolling mechanism for avionics and control. Really, you could base a whole
micro-UAV/UGV system around some version of this concept.

~~~
evilduck
<http://diydrones.com/>

I've seen the Arduino drone guys report they've been able to land within 6m of
their target. Not perfect, but considering the whole shebang is built by
hobbyists for a couple hundred dollars, I'll excuse them.

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noonespecial
There seem to be two kinds of people. The first, when presented with this
technology immediately think about weapons, the second, cats.

I'm a cat person for whatever that's worth.

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evo_9
Great cat toy (with or without suggested c4).

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oldgregg
Saw these guys at BDNT a couple days ago. Love the smart toys concept.

My dream is a personal UAV I can fly over the cell network. I want to drop my
android phone into the cradle on the plane then sit back on my laptop and fly
it around town, take pictures, stream video, fly it over the pentagon, etc.

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NaN
Something like what <http://www.microdrones.com> makes, then? There was a demo
at it at 23C3
([http://events.ccc.de/congress/2006/Fahrplan/events/1402.en.h...](http://events.ccc.de/congress/2006/Fahrplan/events/1402.en.html))
and someone made an open-source UAV control system and demo'd it at 24C3
([http://events.ccc.de/congress/2007/Fahrplan/events/2225.en.h...](http://events.ccc.de/congress/2007/Fahrplan/events/2225.en.html))

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todayiamme
Wow.

If any of the guys who designed it are around; if it's possible can you please
explain how it works?

Do you have a plastic sphere with 2 racks inscribed on it inside with a
central assembly that has the motors and shifts the COG? Or is it something
more beautiful than that?

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gearboxian
It's really rather simple. We'll be posting more info soon! Sign up for our
news at gearbox.me (I swear I don't spam).

~Ian

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eduardoflores
How can this be better than playing with the ball with, say, your hands? your
feet? Maybe I'm getting old

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nooneelse
Tele-Ball (or BallTime in Apple-speak). Hook the movements of two such balls
together via a phone call so widely separated people can enjoy the bonding
power of play.

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sabj
I really really like it.

I also have scary thoughts thinking about how an innocent robotics company can
end up like iRobot... not that that's such a bad thing of itself :) Roombas
and military killing machines, woo.

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joshwa
Previously: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1475336>

(run4yourlives see my comment there ;) )

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run4yourlives
hehe... great minds and whatnot.

</drevil>

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perplexes
<http://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/http://blog.gearbox.me/>

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ElbertF
Great for playing golf.

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lotusleaf1987
Seriously one of the coolest gadgets I've seen, I can't wait to buy these for
people.

