F1 Simulator Installed Into Giant Robotic Arm

Tom Goldman

Crying on the inside.
Aug 17, 2009
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F1 Simulator Installed Into Giant Robotic Arm


The only way to get the true feeling of what it's like to drive a race car is to strap yourself into a giant robot.

What's the best use you can think of for a giant robotic arm? Mine is to use it to crack eggs, but German researchers seemed to have topped me by turning one into a giant race car simulator. It's almost more entertaining to watch the simulator being used than to actually play the game it's attached to.

Paolo Robuffo Giordano and team from the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics in Tübingen, Germany have created a CyberMotion Simulator that makes users think they're driving a Ferrari F2007 F1 racing car at a Monza, Italy race track. In reality, they're sitting in a robotic hand designed to lift 1100 lbs that isn't normally put in the control of a single human user.

This one is though, and it looks amazing doing it. Giordano and team's goal was to "understand how humans experience the sensation of motion." He says: "By running suitable experiments, one can gain better insights into the cognitive processes of the human brain." By that he means: "We wanted to play with this giant robot arm."

The robotic arm was used because, unlike other simulators, it allows users "to be freely displaced in six degrees of freedom in space and even be placed upside-down." It may be developed in the future to simulate airplanes, helicopters, boats, and other vehicles. How about battlecruisers [http://starcraft.wikia.com/wiki/Battlecruiser_%28StarCraft_II%29] too?

Via: PopSci [http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/industrial-robots/engineers-turn-robot-arm-into-formula-1-simulator]

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Megacherv

Kinect Development Sucks...
Sep 24, 2008
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Took me a while to realise how big the arm actually was.

That's pretty damn cool.
 

Blueruler182

New member
May 21, 2010
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Luigi only watch'a the Ferarri.

IHateDaManSkirt said:
Now what would happen if the driver crashed?
The racing arm meets the jaws of life. We'll get moon walking boots in there and we've got most of a human ready.
 

Sporky111

Digital Wizard
Dec 17, 2008
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Awesome use of a robot arm. That thing reacted really quickly too, I wanted to see him hit a wall or jam the wheel in one direction to see if it would whip him sideways.
 

Dogstile

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Jan 17, 2009
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Thorvan said:
Giant pink robot arms; The new Xbox.
Wouldn't happen. Half my fellow Xbox players would demand that it be green and have shields, and lets them know when something is approaching their room, the other half wants it to be desert grey and rewarding of them when they use cheap game tactics.

All of them except a select few, would like the all mighty pink.
 

JourneyThroughHell

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Sep 21, 2009
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This looks surprisingly useful and actually more immersive than motion control, but the size of it is just enormous.
Still, a very neat idea for arcade gaming.
Oh, and it's F1. If he makes it compatible with the new Codemasters game, I'll go insane with joy.
 

Jared

The British Paladin
Jul 14, 2009
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Seems like robotic arms can do short of everything these days...just need the full things now, and then, no more menial tasks for people...until they all go crazy!
 

Evilsanta

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Apr 12, 2010
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So are we training skynet to control our vehicles now? Nooo, this cannot come back and bit ous in the ass.

Jokes aside that lookes awesome.
 

DigitalSushi

a gallardo? fine, I'll take it.
Dec 24, 2008
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I saw this on an F1 site, I was going to message Tom Goldman about it but I forgot to! oopsy!.

One thing I noticed is that the professional F1 simulator by Crudex (I think thats the name) goes the other way when turning to simulate centrifugal force, that pink arm goes to the left when turning to the left when in reality it should be tipping to the right to simulate g force.