Newsgroups: comp.robotics
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From: pxf@cs.bham.ac.uk (Pranath Fernando)
Subject: Re: Star Trek IV whales (was Re: The Free Willy Orca Robot: )
Message-ID: <1993Sep1.171955@cs.bham.ac.uk>
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Organization: University of Birmingham
References:  <CCMvvJ.5yy@math.uwaterloo.ca> <1993Aug31.211634.18053@CSD-NewsHost.Stanford.EDU>
Date: Wed, 1 Sep 1993 16:19:55 GMT
Lines: 38

In article <1993Aug31.211634.18053@CSD-NewsHost.Stanford.EDU>, mark@CS.Stanford.EDU (Mark Hosang Yim) writes:
|> 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
|> 

Anyone know what happened to these Robot whales ?
