1
00:00:01,840 --> 00:00:07,560
Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey brain Stuff,

2
00:00:07,600 --> 00:00:10,280
Speaker 1: I'm Lauren Vocal Bomb, and today I've got another classic

3
00:00:10,320 --> 00:00:14,320
Speaker 1: episode for you. In this one, we talk robots, the

4
00:00:14,320 --> 00:00:17,279
Speaker 1: fun kind, the kind perhaps you think of when you

5
00:00:17,360 --> 00:00:20,200
Speaker 1: hear the word robots, despite the fact that you're way

6
00:00:20,200 --> 00:00:23,680
Speaker 1: more likely to encounter, say, a robotic dishwasher in real life.

7
00:00:23,960 --> 00:00:28,760
Speaker 1: Up large Gundam type mechas. Could we create them in

8
00:00:28,840 --> 00:00:33,640
Speaker 1: real life? Hey brain Stuff, I'm Lauren Vocal Bomb. And

9
00:00:33,840 --> 00:00:36,880
Speaker 1: if science fiction has taught us anything, it's that giant

10
00:00:36,960 --> 00:00:40,600
Speaker 1: piloted robotic humanoids will eventually be essential to the protection

11
00:00:40,760 --> 00:00:44,640
Speaker 1: of everything we hold Dear invading kaiju from another dimension

12
00:00:44,760 --> 00:00:48,000
Speaker 1: send in the aggres ro beasts from Planet Doom better

13
00:00:48,040 --> 00:00:51,479
Speaker 1: assemble Vultron, And, as James Cameron's Aliens taught us in

14
00:00:51,560 --> 00:00:54,440
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty six, even a non combat next suit can

15
00:00:54,440 --> 00:00:58,800
Speaker 1: make all the difference against an extraterrestrial threat. Another influential

16
00:00:58,840 --> 00:01:02,240
Speaker 1: example is our ex seventy eight Dash Too. Gundom, the

17
00:01:02,360 --> 00:01:05,520
Speaker 1: titular piloted giant robot, entered the world in nineteen seventy

18
00:01:05,560 --> 00:01:08,960
Speaker 1: nine as part of Yoshiyuki Tomino's mobile suit. Gundam franchise,

19
00:01:09,000 --> 00:01:13,039
Speaker 1: which remains popular today. But could we build our own gundoms?

20
00:01:13,880 --> 00:01:17,200
Speaker 1: The simple answer is yes. In fact, scientists have been

21
00:01:17,240 --> 00:01:20,000
Speaker 1: tackling various aspects of the technology since at least the

22
00:01:20,080 --> 00:01:23,640
Speaker 1: late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. During that time, both

23
00:01:23,720 --> 00:01:27,600
Speaker 1: Russian and American inventors explored the possibility of mechanically enhanced

24
00:01:27,640 --> 00:01:32,160
Speaker 1: exoskeletons to aid humans in various physical movements. Since that time,

25
00:01:32,240 --> 00:01:36,080
Speaker 1: we've continued to see exoskeleton advancements aimed at injury rehabilitation,

26
00:01:36,400 --> 00:01:42,040
Speaker 1: space travel, industrial labor, and yes, even military combat and okay,

27
00:01:42,440 --> 00:01:44,640
Speaker 1: power armour is nice and all, but it's hardly a

28
00:01:44,760 --> 00:01:47,800
Speaker 1: giant robot that stomps around and punches monsters in the face.

29
00:01:48,600 --> 00:01:52,720
Speaker 1: What about true towering mechas well? The answer here is

30
00:01:52,840 --> 00:01:55,920
Speaker 1: also a yes. Within the field of robotics, we've seen

31
00:01:55,960 --> 00:01:59,400
Speaker 1: tremendous achievements in the creation of remote control, autonomous and

32
00:01:59,480 --> 00:02:03,720
Speaker 1: semi autonomous machines. Today, military drones haunt the skies over

33
00:02:03,800 --> 00:02:07,560
Speaker 1: various global combat zones, and space exploration probes have delivered

34
00:02:07,560 --> 00:02:10,560
Speaker 1: wheeled rovers to other worlds. We've even given our wheeled

35
00:02:10,600 --> 00:02:13,920
Speaker 1: robots arms for tasks from bomb dispersal to Martian soil

36
00:02:13,960 --> 00:02:18,359
Speaker 1: sampling and deep sea exploration, but none of these mechanical

37
00:02:18,440 --> 00:02:23,200
Speaker 1: minions boasts legs. Even the humanoid robot developed by NASA's

38
00:02:23,240 --> 00:02:27,120
Speaker 1: Lyndon B. Johnston Space Center didn't acquire climbing legs until

39
00:02:27,160 --> 00:02:30,600
Speaker 1: its second iteration four proper gundams. To one day walk

40
00:02:30,639 --> 00:02:34,079
Speaker 1: the planet will need proper robot legs, and this too

41
00:02:34,120 --> 00:02:37,640
Speaker 1: has featured into the work of various robotics programs. The

42
00:02:37,760 --> 00:02:41,120
Speaker 1: most famous of these is Boston Dynamics, military funded walker

43
00:02:41,160 --> 00:02:44,520
Speaker 1: programs such as Big Dog and Cheetah, and not just

44
00:02:44,560 --> 00:02:46,840
Speaker 1: because they inspired the killer robots in the Black Mirror

45
00:02:46,880 --> 00:02:51,560
Speaker 1: episode Metalhead, because while aerial and nautical robots can get

46
00:02:51,600 --> 00:02:54,400
Speaker 1: by just fying without a leg to stand on, terrestrial

47
00:02:54,480 --> 00:02:57,400
Speaker 1: robots are a different matter. Wheels are great on the

48
00:02:57,480 --> 00:03:01,399
Speaker 1: road and unobstructed landscapes, but legs provide the most versatility

49
00:03:01,440 --> 00:03:06,440
Speaker 1: for diverse environments. True wheelike structures only rarely occur in biology,

50
00:03:06,760 --> 00:03:09,760
Speaker 1: such as the bacterial flagellum, a structure found in such

51
00:03:09,800 --> 00:03:13,400
Speaker 1: species as the Bacterium ecoli. Legs, on the other hand,

52
00:03:13,600 --> 00:03:18,240
Speaker 1: are natural selections primary solution to terrestrial transportation, so it

53
00:03:18,320 --> 00:03:21,480
Speaker 1: makes sense to copy evolution in this regard, and biomimetic

54
00:03:21,560 --> 00:03:25,040
Speaker 1: engineers have looked to all manner of legagements for inspiration,

55
00:03:25,280 --> 00:03:30,280
Speaker 1: from humans to millipedes. But here's the catch. Legged movement

56
00:03:30,360 --> 00:03:34,280
Speaker 1: requires a great deal of programming, complexity and power. It

57
00:03:34,360 --> 00:03:36,880
Speaker 1: may feel easy for most of us, but our minds

58
00:03:36,880 --> 00:03:39,800
Speaker 1: and bodies are highly evolved for the task. Even a

59
00:03:39,800 --> 00:03:43,000
Speaker 1: fully piloted gundam, say one where its movements are mapped

60
00:03:43,040 --> 00:03:46,040
Speaker 1: on those of the pilot, would require a tremendous amount

61
00:03:46,080 --> 00:03:50,040
Speaker 1: of biomedic engineering, and semi autonomous units would require the

62
00:03:50,080 --> 00:03:54,240
Speaker 1: dexterity and spatial awareness to avoid the pitfalls of for example,

63
00:03:54,440 --> 00:03:57,760
Speaker 1: the ED two nine in RoboCop, which stopped around on

64
00:03:57,800 --> 00:04:01,640
Speaker 1: two feet but was incapable of navigating s stairs. But

65
00:04:01,880 --> 00:04:05,800
Speaker 1: the mecha dream is strong. While various robotics companies continue

66
00:04:05,840 --> 00:04:09,200
Speaker 1: to develop the necessary technology, sci fi fans also go

67
00:04:09,280 --> 00:04:12,640
Speaker 1: at it alone. Functional mechasuits have strolled the Plaia at

68
00:04:12,640 --> 00:04:16,719
Speaker 1: Burning Man and paraded at various conventions, and Japanese engineer

69
00:04:16,760 --> 00:04:19,800
Speaker 1: Masaki Nagumo built a working, life size model of a

70
00:04:19,839 --> 00:04:23,760
Speaker 1: Gundam in twenty eighteen. The mecca, dubbed l W MONONOFU

71
00:04:24,040 --> 00:04:26,640
Speaker 1: stands twenty eight feet tall that's about eight point five

72
00:04:26,680 --> 00:04:30,200
Speaker 1: meters and weighs seven point seven tons or about seven

73
00:04:30,240 --> 00:04:33,200
Speaker 1: metric tons. It's too big to leave the factory space

74
00:04:33,240 --> 00:04:35,600
Speaker 1: that it calls home, but Nagobo rents it and other

75
00:04:35,640 --> 00:04:38,080
Speaker 1: meccas out for a little under one thousand bucks an hour.

76
00:04:38,520 --> 00:04:40,760
Speaker 1: It's not protecting the world from alien attacks, but it's

77
00:04:40,839 --> 00:04:44,440
Speaker 1: quite a hit for kids' birthday parties. Though one note

78
00:04:44,480 --> 00:04:48,520
Speaker 1: here if aliens or giant monsters do attack, well, meccas

79
00:04:48,640 --> 00:04:51,600
Speaker 1: might not be the best option anyway. As was pointed

80
00:04:51,600 --> 00:04:54,240
Speaker 1: out in the magazine Popular Mechanics, the Jaggers from the

81
00:04:54,279 --> 00:04:58,400
Speaker 1: Pacific Rim films are entirely outclassed by existing aerial bombers

82
00:04:58,440 --> 00:05:07,880
Speaker 1: and attack helicopters. Today's episode is based on the article

83
00:05:07,960 --> 00:05:10,240
Speaker 1: could we build our own gun dams? On how Stuffworks

84
00:05:10,240 --> 00:05:12,839
Speaker 1: dot com written by Robert Lamb, with special thanks to

85
00:05:12,920 --> 00:05:16,040
Speaker 1: twelve year old Lucas from Ontario for sending in the question.

86
00:05:16,760 --> 00:05:19,440
Speaker 1: Brain Stuff is production of iHeartRadio in partnership with how

87
00:05:19,480 --> 00:05:22,520
Speaker 1: stuffworks dot Com and is produced by Tyler Klang. Four

88
00:05:22,560 --> 00:05:26,560
Speaker 1: more podcasts from iHeartRadio visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts

89
00:05:26,680 --> 00:05:28,560
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,