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In lugnet.cad.dat.models, Ben Vaughan writes:
> Anything bigger, while perhaps more aesthetically pleasing,
LOL -- Barbara's first words after seeing my loader were, "it's a crab? no,
is it a gorilla?" I think that means the arms were too big. :-,
> would most likely leave the cargo to far in front of the loader. It would
> be much to front/top heavy to be practical. Bigger arms would be more
> practical if this thing were fighting the alien queen, but for moving cargo
> crates, they seem fine.
Yah, it does seem silly to put such large arms on a walking loader. The
arms I put on mine, and the arms on the one in the movie _Aliens_, have to
have their shoulders set so far back that the wrist barely clears the front
of the chassis. And if the thing were ever to lift its arms' weight
capacity, balance would be a serious issue. Heck, even on a modern-day
forklift with its long wheelbase and weights in the back can be toppled with
too big a load.
Part of the excuse I put forward is that my loader has several heavy-duty
gyros for stabilization; but in reality, they'd have to be spinning Real
Dang Fast to
keep balance with even a moderate load. The power plant required to sustain
them would probably out-mass the lifter, IMO.
And this is the biggest issue I have with bipedal mecha of any kind. Fusion
powerplants are almost necessary to power the actuators and balancers and
almost everything else on the mecha, and that's even *before* you slap a
bunch of PlanetCracker Exo-Kill 190Q guns on it. And the plant has to fit
in a tiny space. Can such a small fusion plant even contain critical mass
for a sustained reaction? I doubt it. With a quadraped mecha, you can
increase the mass and get rid of the balancers, leaving room for a much
larger power plant.
Which leads me to my point: the 4-legged forklift thing from the opening
credits of Halflife is wicked cool. I'm wondering if anyone would take the
challenge of building it in Lego.
Cheers,
- jsproat
p.s. A biped with big arms still looks kinda cool. :-,
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: YAL: Yet Another Loader :)
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| I think I'd have to disagree with you Mladen. If those were pneumatic or hydraulically driven arms or forks like on a fork lift, they'd probably be plenty strong. Anything bigger, while perhaps more aesthetically pleasing, would most likely leave (...) (25 years ago, 22-Mar-00, to lugnet.cad.dat.models)
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