The Titanoboa returns
March 25, 2012 11:59 PM   Subscribe

The Titanoboa commutes (more). The Titanoboa disco (more). The Titanoboa vs. T-Rex. Titanoboa: Monster Snake. previously.
posted by stbalbach (3 comments total) 2 users marked this as a favorite
 
What is it with this damn snake and why has news of it been in my Yahoo start page for over 3 weeks? If dinosaurs were as persistent as the discovery channel PR firms working for them, they'd still rule the earth.
posted by jadayne at 2:34 AM on March 26, 2012


Oh nice. I know the robotic Titanoboa people. Bunch of nutball engineer/artist/burning man types from Vancouver. The 'Titanoboa meets the Mondo Spider' video in the 'more' link unexpectedly went viral on them a few months back. One of them is building a giant mech suit called 'Prosthesis' right now.

It is actually a pretty bad-ass piece of machinery. There are a bunch of custom-machiend 'vertebrae' sections, each maybe a foot long, all linked together with hinges, and controlled hydraulically. There is some pretty sophisticated control software that makes it slither around. You drive it with a joystick - lean it forward, and the snake slithers forward. Eventually they plan to mount a saddle so you can ride it. Plus the vertebrae can also swivel up and down as well as side to side, so the snake can bunch itself up and raise its head, in theory.

The snake made its debut at Burning Man last year, but was still a work in progress, and it had trouble slithering across the ground -- its vertebrae kept digging into the dirt and getting stuck. It's on the surface of the Black Rock Roller Disco because they needed a smooth surface to try it on. Incidentally the group that made it is called Energy Awareness Through Art -- eatArt -- and the snake is a commentary on climate change, because it lived in prehistoric times when the planet was warmer.
posted by PercussivePaul at 3:50 AM on March 26, 2012


So, this isn't a new Asylum movie? I am disappoint.
posted by JHarris at 7:41 AM on March 26, 2012 [1 favorite]


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