

A Robot That Collapses Under Pressure (In a Good Way) - fugyk
http://www.wired.com/2015/03/robot-collapses-pressure-good-way/

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Elte
For who's interested, NASA has an open source toolkit for simulating these
structures, using Bullet physics:

[https://github.com/NASA-Tensegrity-Robotics-
Toolkit/NTRTsim](https://github.com/NASA-Tensegrity-Robotics-Toolkit/NTRTsim)

It's fun to play with.

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tsomctl
What happens when a cable gets snagged on a rock? Or even the constant
abrasion of rubbing against things could snap the cable. Interesting design
though, and shows how our vehicles with a solid frame and wheels aren't
necessarily the best thing ever.

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state
I am so excited about stuff like this.

[http://softroboticstoolkit.com/](http://softroboticstoolkit.com/) was the
first thing that really perked my interest. It just seems like such an obvious
yet under explored line of thinking.

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pecanpie
The robot's reminiscent of sculptures by Kenneth Snelson
[http://www.kennethsnelson.net/sculpture/outdoor/](http://www.kennethsnelson.net/sculpture/outdoor/)
, one of which, called "Mozart I", is on the Stanford Campus, where one of the
creators of the robot in the article did his undergraduate studies in Symbolic
Systems. I wouldn't be surprised if the sculpture was an inspiration for the
robot.

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ChuckMcM
definitely unique. I imagine the inverse kinematics of that structure are a
nightmare but you probably don't have to worry too much about positional
feedback.

Brain is whirring with questions about how reliably the tension wires can be
under use, and if you have spring constants in the system do they degrade over
time or are they implemented in code with the tensioner system.

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pazimzadeh
These structures remind me of proteins, which are very much tangled and have
to resist lots of stresses as well. A quick search yields:

Is tensegrity a unifying concept of protein folds?
[http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0014579302...](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S001457930203853X)

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hellbanner
See also:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tensile_structure](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tensile_structure)

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teddyh
Spineless robots?

[http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff200/fv00165.htm](http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff200/fv00165.htm)

