Robotic Arm Ride

Does anyone else feel the imminent birth of a Darwin award?

Bring a frying pan and cook the scrambled eggs from his cracked skull.

man theres nothing scarry about this at all! Its a blast. My buddy OQP has a metal shop and aquired this robot arm to entertain us when he hosts parties at his place for our bike club www.speed-tribe.com

The unit is CNC controller, tested, and we consider it 100% safe, and we even establish a peremiter area for safety sake that nobody enters whil the robot is running.

Thanks OQP for all the fun!
Most of the club has ridden in it. The routine where you get close to the grown sideways is our favorite and we call it the Knee-Dragger!

Looks like the best idea I have seen since the guy put the weather balloons on his lawn chair, but I agree with the above comment regarding the dangers which are significant. I have worked on industrial robots at a major auto plant for over 10 years and have seen the following many times: 1. Stripped gears in the wrist axis speed reducers allowing the associated axis to move uncontrollably (the encoder that feeds back position data to the control computer is on the motor, not the actual drive gears, so the robot will not see a fault and auto-shutdown until it collides with a fixed object and the other “connect” axis’ sense the overload.) 2. Unexpected brake release of one or more axis, without servo current to the motor. We call this “Taking a Nap” as we find the robot completely relaxed and in whatever position gravity put it. Usually the end arm tooling is broken off or badly bent. 3. Unexpected program change, where the robot has called up the incorrect “job” or program and run it in error. Computers sometimes do strange things, you may have noticed. If a robot were to be designed for life-critical operations it would have double or triple redundant control systems which continulally monitor each other (as in an autopilot system), and the encoding or position feedback would not be on the motor, but on the end of the drive train where it could sense actual mechanical position of the axis. Though I agree that an industrial robot is extremly reliable this application needs a lot more thought by an engineer who knows the machine in depth. At least consider an elevated platform which would prevent the potential victim from floor contact before the robot hits it’s hard mechanical stops, and a chaair that supports the body and neck, and is equiped with a “deadman” switch. Don’t put the switch on an e-stop though as the shock to the human body riding a robot when it hits the brakes at high speed could snap a neck. Oh yeah, consider more insurance in case the power fluctuated and the robot e-stops. Same reason.

I’m a robotics engineer and I agree 100%with oldkystude. Nanotech9, I hope you’re kidding that you consider this 100% safe. Hopefully no one has been hurt or worse killed on this thing yet. Robots will do unexpected things and it’s usually just an oversight in a program somehwere along the way. I’ve seen a robot the same size as the one in this video effortlessly move a 5 ton welding table that it hit accidentally. If you guys want to see a cool robot ride that has been thoroughly thought out and designed for safety, check out http://www.robocoaster.com/ and please be safe!