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Comment by mam3 | Hacker News Reader

Bipedal drone. Its not the same to stabilize on the slackline with rotors than without.

Wow, what a ridiculously misleading headline. Caltech should be ashamed.

Thanks for clarifying things. I wonder if I could have a drone drag a string on a slackline and talk about my balancing robot.

Who cares how it's stabilized, it still has all the same advantages that a regular bipedal robot would have. Being pedantic about the mechanical "purity" of the design seems counterproductive.

It's not exactly being pedantic. If I saw a headline that talked about someone with a shattered spine learning to walk again, but it omitted the fact that the walking is accomplished with an exoskeleton, then it's pretty misleading. It can still be cool (I totally want an exoskeleton), but the headline is deeply inaccurate.

After all, the thing has "drone" in the basis of its name.

It is the same. The propellers take the same role as gyros. It just uses atmosphere to create lift to become buoyant to make up for the fact that it is not very powerful. Once it is buoyant the interaction between legs and blades seem like the same type of stabilization as any other robot- fast micro adjustments of various potential-filled motors to stay on course

Not quite it’s much easier to balance on a slack line if you can put a hand or even just a few fingers on a stationary object. The propellers offer similar benefits.

> if you can put a hand or even just a few fingers on a stationary object. The propellers offer similar benefits.

As do gyros

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