Carpentopod, a 12-legged walking wooden table that can serve drinks or snacks | Hacker News Reader

Carpentopod, a 12-legged walking wooden table that can serve drinks or snacks

designboom.com

52 pointsT-A17 comments

That's pretty cool - reminds me of "the luggage" from Terry Pratchett's books in table form (https://discworld.fandom.com/wiki/The_Luggage)

It reminds me of the book "Man of Two Worlds" by Frank Herbert and his son Brian. In it, some crazy inventor guy built his own car, but instead of wheels like any normal car, it had legged robots on each end that carried it. The inventor's son complained that this car was impractical as it couldn't travel as fast as a normal car.

Meta: this was posted 2 weeks ago [1], with 50+ comments.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41491016

It's the better link because it's the original source

The creator used a genetic algorithm to design the optimal leg mechanism for smoothness.

The video is pretty cool:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=xKDY4yWxfJM&e

That's a video of the table walking. It would have been super interesting to see a video of the different steps of the optimization process as a 3D animation, but that's a bit too much to ask.

I’m sorry, I forgot the write up was where the genetic algo was shown:

https://www.decarpentier.nl/carpentopod

He does have animations of the process just not 3D.

Cool, thanks!

Movement looks like the movement from wind powered sculptures. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pj-NqWDH2qE&ab_channel=TheNe...

As it indeed says in the second sentence. It's a modification of the design for smoother movement. Which seems to work well since that bottle stayed put.

Coincidentally, its another dutch man

Ah, I almost reposted this since i didn't see anyone reference Strandbeest's[0] which I believe is the name for them.

[0] https://www.strandbeest.com/

Interesting that it's made out of laminated bamboo. Often this kind of thing is plywood which is its own aesthetic but I think not as nice (and a nightmare if the plywood is big box store crap and not excellent quality). It's a great, dimensionally stable material but really a hassle to get hold of here in non-bulk quantities. I wanted some bamboo sheets for a knife rack and ended up buying table mats at retail and cutting them down.

great parking job

much more comprehensive write up from creator

https://www.decarpentier.nl/carpentopod

> Giliam de Carpentier

Nice bit of nominative determinism, there.

That's really cool, I really appreciate how the legs are barely extending beyond the table itself. I wonder how much it could carry, whether it could also be a trunk (someone else already mentioned the Luggage), cabinet, or fridge. (The walk-ing fridge pun was already used in a beer advert)

That is a really interesting mechanism. So smooth.

I looks like something retro-futuristic.

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