{"id":2700,"date":"2005-07-28T18:52:37","date_gmt":"2005-07-28T17:52:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.yummy-wakame.com\/archives\/2005\/07\/25\/vehicle-to-autonomous-biped-robot-conversion-for-the-mini-cooper-r50\/"},"modified":"2005-07-28T18:52:37","modified_gmt":"2005-07-28T17:52:37","slug":"vehicle-to-autonomous-biped-robot-conversion-for-the-mini-cooper-r50","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yummy-wakame.com\/weblog\/2005\/07\/vehicle-to-autonomous-biped-robot-conversion-for-the-mini-cooper-r50\/","title":{"rendered":"Vehicle to autonomous biped robot conversion for the Mini Cooper r50"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/pics\/robot-mini.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"pic_100px\" \/>&#8220;<strong>I first had the vision to build a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.r50rd.co.uk\/research\/internal\/v2i\/engin\/\" rel=\"external\">robot<\/a> while working as an engineer on the old Mini Coopers in the late 1960s.<\/strong> There were no real robots at the time of course, so it was purely science-fiction. But I always believed a robot would be the most natural complement to the automobile &#8211; a full biped, intelligent version having great strength, dexterity and a library of mechanical knowledge. I imagined a robot with the ability to repair vehicles, direct traffic and watch over high-accident crossroads to preempt accidents.<\/p>\n<p>This ambition started to look possible when work began on the new Mini. I&#8217;ve always believed BMW overbuilds many of their parts, so the over-building of certain Mini applications for my robotics use went unnoticed. In 1998, I began tests in a remote location outside Oxford.<\/p>\n<p>In 2000 I thought my formal connection to Mini might be severed when Rover was sold by BMW. Luckily, BMW chose to retain the Mini brand. Subsequently, a few engineers would need to stay in England &#8211; Oxford to be exact. I was slated for retirement and was originally from the Oxford area so it raised little suspicion when I offered to stay. From then on, progress was swift.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>This is SO COOL! <a href=\"http:\/\/www.r50rd.co.uk\/research\/internal\/v2i\/engin\/\" rel=\"external\">You HAVE to check out the videos<\/a> of this robot further down the page!<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;I first had the vision to build a robot while working as an engineer on the old Mini Coopers in the late 1960s. There were no real robots at the time of course, so it was purely science-fiction. But I always believed a robot would be the most natural complement to the automobile &#8211; a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[212,239],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogalog","category-geek-out"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yummy-wakame.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2700","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yummy-wakame.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yummy-wakame.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yummy-wakame.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yummy-wakame.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2700"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/yummy-wakame.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2700\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yummy-wakame.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yummy-wakame.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yummy-wakame.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}