{"id":2051,"date":"2011-10-05T22:20:35","date_gmt":"2011-10-06T03:20:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.dankohn.info\/?p=2051"},"modified":"2020-08-17T17:54:44","modified_gmt":"2020-08-17T17:54:44","slug":"omni-crawler-has-the-wheel-finally-been-reinvented","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.dankohn.info\/index.php\/2011\/10\/05\/omni-crawler-has-the-wheel-finally-been-reinvented\/","title":{"rendered":"Omni-Crawler: Has the Wheel Finally Been Reinvented?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>From: <a href=\"http:\/\/technabob.com\/blog\/2011\/09\/30\/omni-crawler-crawling-robot\/\">http:\/\/technabob.com\/blog\/2011\/09\/30\/omni-crawler-crawling-robot\/<\/a><br \/>\nSep 30, 2011<\/p>\n<p>At the recently concluded Innovation Japan 2011, a group of researchers from the robot-obsessed, ever-innovative Osaka University in Japan presented the Omni-Ball, a ball-shaped wheel that can move in all directions.  They then used the Omni-Ball to create the Omni-Crawler, a small vehicle that \u2013 yep, you catch on quick \u2013 easily move in all directions.<\/p>\n<p>We can look at the Omni-Ball as an improved version of the swivel caster (the wheels that are usually attached to the bottom of shopping carts and office chairs). Compared to casters, which have multiple parts, the Omni-Ball is much simpler. It\u2019s made up of two matching hemispheres attached to either side of an axle. The hemispheres can move independently or together as a sphere. Attach the Omni-Ball to a vehicle and you get the Omni-Crawler. Attach it to a gripper and you get the Omni-Gripper. Dip it in gel and\u2026 nah I don\u2019t think that\u2019ll work. Watch the video to learn more about the Omni-thingies:<\/p>\n<p><code><object style=\"height: 390px; width: 640px\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/BTp2UAaihaI?version=3\"><param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\"><param name=\"allowScriptAccess\" value=\"always\"><embed src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/BTp2UAaihaI?version=3\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" allowScriptAccess=\"always\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\"><\/object><\/code><\/p>\n<p>It reminds me of the treads on this LEGO tank, but the Omni-Ball will probably make for a much smoother ride. As YouTuber TheExWarrior commented, it would be awesome if all cars had Omni-Balls instead of wheels because it\u2019ll make parking much easier. It\u2019ll also make driving \u2013 crawling? \u2013 a lot more fun.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From: http:\/\/technabob.com\/blog\/2011\/09\/30\/omni-crawler-crawling-robot\/ Sep 30, 2011 At the recently concluded Innovation Japan 2011, a group of researchers from the robot-obsessed, ever-innovative Osaka University in Japan presented the Omni-Ball, a ball-shaped wheel that can move in all directions. They then used the &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.dankohn.info\/index.php\/2011\/10\/05\/omni-crawler-has-the-wheel-finally-been-reinvented\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-robot-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.dankohn.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.dankohn.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.dankohn.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.dankohn.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.dankohn.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2051"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.dankohn.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2051\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5353,"href":"http:\/\/blog.dankohn.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2051\/revisions\/5353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.dankohn.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.dankohn.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.dankohn.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}