Meet Swumanoid. He's the replacement Tokyo Institute of Technology researchers have whipped up for pesky earthlings who can't identically repeat tests or minutely change their swimming style. The bot can reproduce a swimmer's full body movement and measure water resistance in an effort to shed some light on the forces acting on creatures like Michael Phelps. Created with 3D printed parts of an inferior human swimmer at half scale, it's attached to a drive unit and confined to a circulating water tank; Swumanoid takes two minutes and thirty-six seconds to swim roughly 300 feet, so it'll be a while before he and his kin chase you down. In the meantime, you can watch nightmare fueling footage of the bot presumably training for the Ironman Triathlon after the break.

Continue reading Humanoid bot created to analyze mechanics of swimming, replace unreliable carbon-based life forms

Humanoid bot created to analyze mechanics of swimming, replace unreliable carbon-based life forms originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 04 Jun 2012 13:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.