For the last ten years, Dutch artist Theo Jansen has been developing enormous wind-powered walking creatures that look like something out of a Ghibli film. He describes them as "skeletons that walk on the wind", but it's difficult to do them justice with mere words - to fully appreciate them, you really need to see them in action.
Here he is featured in a BMW commercial:
These aren't really robots, of course. They're kinetic sculptures. Nevertheless,there is something really inspiring about seeing a beautiful piece of engineering like this. Some people say that it's a "fusion of engineering and art", but I don't like that description - similar to what he says in the commercial, I consider engineering and art to be two faces of the same process. I certainly do agree, however, that feats of engineering as aesthetically beautiful as this are quite rare. Leave it up to the Dutch, eh?
This comes at a time when I've been a little bit down about my job - not about my company specifically, or my current work, but looking at the big picture, the lack of job security and profitability in the research world has been on my mind a lot lately. I'm really excited about things like autonomous localization and mapping algorithms, and state estimation in the face of uncertainty, and I'm also really looking forward to working with my new robot, but thinking long-term gets a little depressing.
Inspiration is always important for refueling the enthusiasm engine, and Theo Jansen's Strandbeesten reawaken that part of my mind that rejoices in the harmony of elegant design and thrills at the possibilities of what the human mind can achieve. Maybe I need to cultivate some large-scale dreams like his: "the making of a new nature".
If you want to see more, the following two videos are much slower-paced, but you do get to see a little bit more detail of the creatures' motions.
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