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Comment by gala8y | Hacker News Reader

Re: video. It really stuck with me, why did they choose to use a ball at the base?

Festo's demo projects are somewhat whimsical. Go to their main site and see some of the many other things they've done.

The ball is rather clever. Most omnidirectional drives involve a big wheel with little wheels or rollers on the rim. The little wheels have trouble with door thresholds and thick carpets. The big ball doesn't have that problem.

In fact I did look some more at their stuff, thx.

> The ball is rather clever.

Sure there are pluses here, but I thought about parking the thing (because) it needs to use energy for balancing while not parked, doesn't it? Future looks weird - one hand robots on spheres roaming through rooms with thick carpets...

It's not the future; it's a future.

It's Festo showing off. Festo does precision motion control with pneumatics. Most pneumatic systems just push a piston until it hits a stop. Festo does these demos to demonstrate that their pneumatics can do much more than that. After a customer sees those demos, they're convinced that pneumatic motion control is possible. Here's their booth at Hannover Fair in 2023, where their machinery is working on the show floor. [1]

It's the opposite of "fake it til you make it".

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuZJPUKC1VU

Cool, thanks for the answer. This is a legitimate reason to do so and doing so trumps other factors. Funny. Contexts.

> It's the opposite of "fake it til you make it".

I like this level when you can show off what you do, play with it, enjoy it _and_ provide value. Showing off preferably being the smallest part in the mix.

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