Technabob » treads

Trax MkII Concept Watch is Militaristic and Easy to Read

Hazel Chua — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 18:00:41 +0000

Remember that futuristic concept watch I told you about yesterday, FOUR? It had all the makings of a great watch, except that it was way too complicated for my taste.

Watch designs featured by Tokyoflash are usually extremely complicated, which makes reading the time off of them – which happens to be the main purpose of watches, by the way – more difficult than necessary. Needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised when I chanced upon the Trax MkII Concept Watch.

The watch was designed by Peter Fletcher from the UK, and draws on obvious military themes as its inspiration. That’s pretty much apparent as it uses tank-like treads to tell the time. Unlike other watch displays that flash a series of LED lights and leave all the time reading interpretation up to you, the Trax MkII tells it like it is: with good, old-fashioned digits.

As the time changes, the numbered treads move into position. Just read the numbers found between the LED illuminated brackets in the middle to know what time of day it is – in military time, of course.

On the design, Peter explains: “I wanted to come up with a watch design based on driven belts. The first thought that popped into my head when thinking about belts was caterpillar tracks and what caterpillar tracks are usually attached too. So I decided to use tanks as an inspiration for this watch concept.”

Execution of this particular design will require a fairly complex mechanism to be built, but if you’d like to see it produced some day, be sure to cast your vote over on the Tokyoflash design blog.

[via Ubergizmo via Geeky Gadgets]

Iguana 29 Amphibious Yachts: Land or Water, It Doesn’t Matter

Range — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 16:00:57 +0000

Sick of the sea? This new motorboat from Iguana Yachts will deploy treads and let just drive your fancy ship right out of the water when you’re ready to get back on dry land. Why does this remind me of a James Bond movie?

The Iguana 29 has retractable tank treads that will deploy when needed. The treads are powered by electricity, so they don’t make much noise, either. This means that to beach or dock the boat, you won’t need any help at all. It’s also designed to help you get out of a jam at low tide or if you get too close to a sandbar in shallow waters.

It was created by Antoine Fritsch. The idea was to create a design for the treads that wouldn’t compromise the look of the hull.

While there are already other amphibious boats, none of them look as stylish or modern as this one. The Iguana 29 is available starting at around €215,000 (~$280,000 USD).

[via TrendsNow (FR)]

LANDBEARSHARK Motorized Skateboard with Treads: Another Way to Die?

Range — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 15:00:41 +0000

Ever since I first saw motorized skateboards, I always thought that there were a really great way to get around. Now that I’m older and saner, I know for a fact that these contraptions can’t be too safe, especially when you don’t have many ways of slowing down. This particular motorized skateboard was created by The Miters from MIT, and it premiered at the World Maker Faire in New York.

Charles Guan is the one who rides this thing (designed, created, and built it as well), and it gets around on a pair of treads, which makes it different than wheeled boards, and lets its passenger ride off-road. The skateboard boasts a custom drivetrain, 500-watt hours of lithium batteries inside of it, and a 1HP motor to tug you around. Top speed is 15 to 20mph, which isn’t bad.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

The LANDBEARSHARK tread skateboard still needs a remote control to function for now, but Charles thinks that once this thing is perfected, it will do without.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

[via Make:]

Rubble Robot Believes in Slow but Steady Progress

Lambert Varias — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 16:06:52 +0000

From the Tokyo Institute of Technology comes this slow, sad-looking, nameless but practical robot. It’s designed to burrow under rubble to serve as the eyes and ears for rescuers. Instead of forcing its way through rock or jacking itself up, the robot ever so gently lifts rubble using two hydraulic plates, minimizing the risk of inducing a collapse.

Using its easy-does-it method, the robot’s plates, along with its sloped face – and unfathomable reserve of determination – allows it to wriggle through places too small or narrow or risky for human rescuers, while a complementary A/V receiver beams back footage from the scene.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

I’d call it “Eeeyore”, but that sad stuffed donkey is more of a rescuee than a rescuer.

[via BotJunkie]

Srv-1 Blackfin Wi-Fi Camera Robot Lets You Spy From Afar

Technabob — Mon, 04 May 2009 13:14:57 +0000

This palm-sized robot can wind its way between the cubicles at your office, snapping digital video of unsuspecting parties with a built in wireless video camera.

The Surveyor SRV-1 Mobile Robot cruises around on smooth and rough surfaces thanks to a pair of tank-like treads, and can be controlled anywhere your Wi-Fi connection can reach. An 802.11 b/g receiver on board the rechargeable ‘bot lets you drive the little guy from any computer on the network – even from across the globe.

Under the hood of the SRV-1 is a powerful 1000MIPS 500MHz Blackfin BF537 processor with 32MB of RAM and 4MB of Flash storage. The robot has a 1280×1024 (1.3 megapixel) color video camera, and can avoid obstacles such as walls thanks to a pair of built-in laser pointers. A 7.2V rechargeable battery pack should let you cruise around for up to 4 hours on a single charge.

And since the robot is powered by open-source code, you can customize the software to your own needs. Me? I’m building Skynet v1.0. Thanks to RoboRealm, I can control my robot army with C/C++, Python, Java, C#, Lisp, Visual Basic, WScript or COM. Of course, I always figured that Skynet would be written in Logo or Whitespace, so I guess I’ll have to rethink my evil plan.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

You can get your hands on the SRV-1 robot over at ThinkGeek for $474.99 (USD).