Kind: captions
Language: en
this is a St based it's a walking
skeleton that's powered only by the wind
created by Dutch inventor Tao Janson
there are no Motors and no electronics
and they are made of the weirdest
materials tape and glue and snot and
screws and gets that Force to transfer
is really thrilling to me I mean now
it's on The Simpsons The Strand be uh is
this science or Garbage Dutch art but
how do they actually work and why did he
build
them well it all started 34 years ago I
promised myself to uh spend one gear on
the tubes that was in 1990 that got
totally out of hand a little
[Music]
now janson's thinking bigger I hope the
that these animals can survive all the
circumstances here on the beach like the
storms and the water and the sand
hopefully at the end of my life it's
that far and that they can live on the
own that's their idea a new specimen on
Earth but to achieve this goal the base
had to overcome six major challenges the
first is that they had to support their
own weight the beginning I had lot of
trouble with the connections the joints
I use cellot tape to next them I did old
broke you know as a result all the base
could do was lie on its back and move
its legs a little yeah I can imagine the
first thing I would do is stop using
tape like tap tape is not a long-term
solution right yeah no it was very
shortterm you can look at some of the
pictures it's just like you see some
tubes but you mostly see tape everywhere
trying to hold it together and so he he
to realizes this very quickly so the
first fix to this challenge is like
using zip ties much more elegant much
more clean way way stronger Janson
restricted himself to only a few basic
materials still five more hurdles
remained the next of which was getting
the Bas to walk smoothly to do this
Jansen realized that the path traced out
by their foot as it moves is extremely
important because if that's wonky and
all over the place the bast will likely
lose its balance but if instead it
traces out a mostly flat surface along
the bottom well well then the base could
keep its balance and walk properly now
you can get drastically different foot
paths by changing the proportions of
these tubes and where they're placed
some foot paths might be wonky others a
bit flat or just about anything in
between but how do you find the right
one that's what Janson wanted to find
out so in 1990 he wrote a computer
program that could compute the foot path
for any given combination of proportions
now you might think just have the
computer go over tril ions of possible
options and then pick the best one but
that doesn't work then my computer would
be on for 100,000 years yeah so that's
why I use this Evolution method where
you can be come there a lot
faster so Jansen ran a simulation that
started with 1500 different combinations
of proportions resulting in 1500
different foot paths now none of these
curves had a great flat surface at the
bottom but some were slightly more flat
than others those combinations would
then reproduce and multiply with slight
changes into 1500 new combinations and
this evolutionary process went on for
months day and night until by the end of
it these 13 holy numbers came out that's
how he describes it they describe the
proportions and placements of all tubes
so that when you put them all together
and start rotating the crankshaft right
here they give you this foot path
this is the path that just about every
St based has traced out for over 30
years if you then connect different legs
together where each leg is out of phase
of the others by
120° then you get this continuous smooth
walk and those 13 holy numbers well I
guess you could see that as the genetic
code of the Strand bases and the reason
you offset them by 120° is so that
there's always feet that are in contact
with the ground which gives you this
move right and getting this right is
important in 2016 my friend and original
mythbuster Adam Savage built his own
pedal powerered straw based I found the
movement of his robots so compelling
because it felt like looking at a
different kind of nature there's a
tremendous amount of force on the axle
and that he builds all this stuff with
like tape and glue and snot and screws
and gets that Force to transfer is
really thrilling to me to be honest when
I I built one at the Exploratorium in
their parking lot over 3 days and for 2
days I was getting it wrong Adam tried
all kinds of fixes to get it to walk but
without success but I remember building
the strong beast and hearing this guy
talking about something I was getting
wrong and I'm tuning out tuning out
tuning out and then at 4:00 between days
2 and 3 4:00 in the morning I woke up
and I was like that guy's
right and he saw it on the invitation to
the the build he saw that I had missed
in my translation of a drawing I had
missed one of the linkages and that I
had this length of the center triangle
linkage off and I needed to push it out
and it was like night and day I came in
fixed that thing cut up all the way up
the middle of this metal bot extended
everything by an inch and all of a
sudden it just walked it was like when
you get it right that thing just moves
ah yes yes
did you ever give that guy a heads up
and be like hey yeah I did but not till
the end of the day okay I didn't want to
give him the satisfaction while I was
still
working that's my
[Laughter]
ego but Adam's Bas lived in an
exhibition jansson's base on the other
hand spend the entire summer on the
beach where they're exposed to the
elements so all the remaining hurdles
are about surviving and conquering their
natural habitat one major challenge is
dealing with
sand and a sand is very fluffy so it's
very easy for them to get stuck
especially if it's a stick it would just
bury itself in and then it cannot move
so it can't survive to prevent this from
happening the bast's evolved feet
specifically adapted to the beach what
you can immediately see is that it's not
just a stick that's poking into the
ground instead you've got this large
sort of surface area then it's much
easier for it to stay on top of the sand
but they also fulfill a less obvious
function you've got these wires here and
what this does together with the larger
surface area is it provides a lot more
contact time where the foot is basically
in touch with the ground so when this
foot is in touch with the ground it can
get taken over by another and taken over
by another and as a result you get this
very smooth ride which is what you're
looking for to save the structure of the
stum base and not put too much pressure
on it cuz I built one with tennis shoes
Teo explained to me that having a couple
of inches of play in the linkage between
the final ankle and the tennis shoe was
mission critical to allow that foot to
stay in place while the linkage got the
other foot up and ready to drop and
that's apparently how our walking works
is you know we we it's not straight like
one two three like a robot there is this
swing but the bases aren't always
walking I mean sometimes they're tied up
in the same place for days or weeks and
then sand poses another major threat if
you leave a structure like this on the
beach you come back after three weeks
and it's just
me to avoid that I thought maybe if they
just lift up a little bit you send those
under there and then don't that buries
this is how flying St bases evolve
but the base also face more violent
threats like storms so how can they
increase their odds of survival during
these
times well for regular animals it's
typically easier to survive harsh
conditions by banding together and the
same holds true for stra bases and the
idea behind this animal was that uh they
would survive the storm maybe better
holding each other because if you see an
individual like over there if if you put
it on the beach it blows over very easy
so as an individual they wouldn't
survive but as a group holding each
other they are stronger in strong
winds this also allows for a different
type of St Bas one that can be pulled
and the big idea is actually that this
would be pulled by the other St bases
now I asked theyo if I can pull it and
he said yes so we can grab it right here
there are some hand markings
and then now I should be the motor and
this crawler should come behind me so
let's see oh man this is
cool this is very cool walking a St
based up at Dutch Beach what an epic job
Str Bas are in a never-ending battle
against the elements but they can help
each other by working together not too
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video and now back to
strongests but if too much wind is a
problem too little is as well so right
now you can actually see one of the
current fatal flaws of the St Bas they
walk when there's wind but as soon as
the wind dies down the animal basically
dies down as well and so this is one of
the challenges that Theo is actually
trying to solve right now ah there it
goes again this is similar to a
challenge that life too has faced see
you can't always rely on the currents of
the wind or water to take you where you
need to go so what you want is to stock
up on energy when it's plentiful and
then use it later when you need
it so you need two things a way to store
energy and muscles that can use this
stored
energy now to collect energy you've got
this sail which is moved by the wind and
as it moves it turns this crankshaft
which then pushes this piston here and
it can store pressurized air in this
plastic bottle just like a bicycle pop
do you know sort of what pressures it
can go up to it went up to five
yesterday so quite a quite a pressure
wow they explode when they're 10 bars
yeah well once I had a a bottle and
there was a a piston in there and it's
it flew just next to my ear through the
window on the back so I broke the window
so that was quite a happening wow holy
that's
lucky that's a close
call so now that you have a way to store
energy you just need a way to use
it and if you connected pressure with a
pump like this this jumps out so you
have a sort of muscle muscle is nothing
but an object which becomes longer or
shorter on commands so we have pulling
muscles and the Strand Bas they have
pushing muscles this has allowed some
strand Bas to crawl slightly others to
walk by pushing themselves along and one
to wag its
tails one thing you might not is that
with each challenge the St Bas become
more and more like real animals it's as
if their process is mimicking life and
following a similar evolutionary pattern
and in a way this is true because they
have to overcome many of the same
challenges that animals have had to and
as life evolved it became more and more
aware of its surroundings and in at
least one case it became conscious and
self-aware but right now there is still
one big challenge the base have to
overcome because they're blind and deaf
they don't hear the r sear so imagine
that you're blind and DEA you can only
feel around somehow so one of the
challenges that the Str base run into is
that they're walking along the water and
if they accidentally go in the wrong
direction because they are being carried
by the wind then they could end up in
the water and that would be disastrous
so to fix that Tao has been working on a
system that can actually sense when it's
touching the water and then hopefully
with a connection of brain cells and
muscles it can then course correct to go
away from the water back onto the beach
and of course it's important to know
that you're close to the Sea right
that's why I have a water feeler here
about great can you hold it here it goes
over the ground to about this height and
it sucks in air all the
time and as soon as it comes into the
sea it swallows to water and feels the
resistance of the
water it still doesn't work well I must
regret oh now it's
working so
happy but those senses are only useful
if you can process those inputs make a
decision on what to do and then issue
that to your muscles like when you walk
into the water you should be able to use
your muscles to correct course so what
you need is a nervous system a sort of
brain if you will this is a nerve cell
if I I take the top off and if I blow
air in
here the air goes in here and comes out
of here so this is a connection but if I
push in this piston here it's blocked so
in fact what you see here is only only a
cruncher only a valve open close right
right now I go to operate at CL with
air so if I blow air in here this closes
and no air comes out of here if you see
this as the output and this the input
the output is opposite from the
input in other words you can switch
zeros and ones just like in a computer
so what you see here is the beginning of
the brain of the Strand
Beast do you have an idea how many brain
cells you'd need to be able to make that
work so the animal walks into the water
and then is able to turn
around 20 something like that wow yeah
it's it's not very complicated yeah the
only thing is here on the beach
everything is complicated because sand
Creeps in everything and so it's uh yeah
it's not an easy thing no over time the
bastes also slowly degrade they lose
their color and parts might break off on
the scale of the global microplastic
pollution problem this effect is small
but it's certainly not helping
fortunately though almost all parts of
the straw base are reused sold as
fossils or they end up in the
graveyard it's crazy to think that all
of this has been made possible by the
obsession of one guy tinkering away year
after year but why did he do
it during the late 1980s it was becoming
clear that Rising levels of carbon
dioxide would warm the planet and
therefore sea levels would rise by as
much as 2.2 M by 2100 and about a third
of janson's Home Country the Netherlands
lies below the current sea level so
rising sea levels pose a clear and
present threat so Janson came up with a
solution he imagined this sort of
walking Skeleton on the beach it would
be powered by the wind and it would kick
up sand as it walked then this sand
would blow to the dunes heightening them
and hence protecting the Netherlands
from the rising sea levels he published
this idea in the vaultz crant and called
these skeletons straon beasts I don't
speak Dutch straon Beast is it the beach
Beast like what is that yeah perfect
it's the beach
Beast this is such a wacky idea I know
who comes up with that D jansson what
started as an article in a newspaper
turned into much more to the point where
it's basically Defined jansson's Life so
you might ask is it still really about
protecting the Netherlands and the
answer is no not really it's about a
much more human need that most of us
have the desire to be remembered after
we're gone I mean it's ominous to
imagine that we'll die and be forgotten
someday so a lot of us go to Great
Lengths to avoid this by having kids
donating large sums of money to get a
building named after you or writing a
book these sorts of ideas for Jansen
it's making stra base and when they
fulfill their final goal of living
independently on the beach
then he wrote I can die with peace of
mind the only thing is I don't have
millions of years that's the problem a
bit but maybe I can hypnotize some young
people around here there were some
people who were really very uh very nice
and and they help me a lot so I might be
able to
factor this virus biggest people all
over the world are actually using this
as well so like the virus is spreading
in a way or whatever you want to call it
thousands of people all over the world
are incorporating his 13 holy numbers
into their own designs from miniature St
bases to ones you can ride to a walking
bicycle the genetic code of the bastes
is spreading all over the world he wants
everyone to build one of these but I
don't think he's got any ulterior motive
except that he likes seeing those things
go and when when he makes them go he has
a set of rules and restrictions but he
doesn't Place those same restrictions on
anyone else I think that's really
beautiful and who knows perhaps one day
they'll achieve that ultimate goal a new
species on Earth roaming the world's
beaches kicking Up Sand all along and
maybe even protecting some coastlines
from rising sea
levels it's Dr rding through the
sand legs moving like a marching
B strong stronges sh to never cease
strong strong marching to the rhym's be