Newsgroups: comp.robotics
Path: brunix!sgiblab!darwin.sura.net!howland.reston.ans.net!agate!headwall.Stanford.EDU!CSD-NewsHost.Stanford.EDU!CS.Stanford.EDU!mark
From: mark@CS.Stanford.EDU (Mark Hosang Yim)
Subject: Star Trek IV whales (was Re: The Free Willy Orca Robot: )
Message-ID: <1993Aug31.211634.18053@CSD-NewsHost.Stanford.EDU>
Sender: news@CSD-NewsHost.Stanford.EDU
Organization: Robotics Department, Stanford University, Ca. USA
References:  <CCMvvJ.5yy@math.uwaterloo.ca>
Date: Tue, 31 Aug 1993 21:16:34 GMT
Lines: 35

In article <CCMvvJ.5yy@math.uwaterloo.ca>, mwtilden@math.uwaterloo.ca (Mark W. Tilden) writes:
|> 
|> Apparently for the movie, an anthropormorphically correct robot was
|> made of the killer whale.  My source sez that when this device was
|> lowered into the water, it did exhibit a strong swimming capability.
|> He knew nothing more however.
|> 
|> I have not seen the movie, but does anybody have any further details as
|> to if this robot was a tethered puppet (aka: Rex from Jurassic park) or
|> fairly autonomous?  Any article references would be appreciated.  
|> 
|> Is all.
|> 
|> -- 
|> Mark W. Tilden.  "Gomi no Sensei des"       _    _    ________________________

I'm not sure about "free willy", but in "Star Trek IV" the whales that were 
shown were robot whales, about 3 or 4 feet in length I think.  One of the guys 
involved in the design gave a lecture in a class here at stanford (ME218 
smart product design lab).

Very cool stuff.

These whales (if memory serves) were not tethered, they swam by themselves under
radio control.  They shot scenes in a swimming pool that was filled with lots of
dirt or something to make it the right murkiness (?) for the ocean given the 
scale of the robots.  I also seem to remember the guy telling us that he did
have some amount of control in steering the whales.

All this was maybe 5 years ago, and my memory isn't the best. If anyone is 
interested I can try to get better details from other people.

mark
mark@killdeer.stanford.edu

