Live from La Farine: **: Darpa: These Robots Will Save Your Life (Once They Learn to Walk): "Tech reporter Sam Thielman visited the Darpa Robotics Challenge in Pomona, California...
...to watch 25 robotics teams compete for $2m in prize money and the distinction of having scored highest in a challenging obstacle course designed to mimic the conditions of a nuclear meltdown. Some participating robotics teams are small and feisty, others are well-funded and robust, but all have a true love of technology. And the robots seem to have even more personality than their masters (even when walking a bit like grannies).
If walking were easy, more animals would do it. Think of the extra energy a quadruped would have if it could take all the energy devoted to growing and maintaining two of its locomotion limbs and devote it to some other purpose. Yet it is birds and humans that have found a way, and only birds and humans. So I am not surprised that bipedal walking turns out to be a very hard robotics task.
