you're probably right,

"Fine motor control, focused attention and goal directed behavior are believed to be relevant factors for this observation."

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25805454

Yeah there are slap bands out there, but they don't work like this is presented to work. The arms would have to bend in multiple dimensions, and then straighten out and be able to provide a stable flying platform. The closest thing I think of for doing something like that is the "bendy" character toys where the metal wire is co-molded inside the body. That is a very heavy solution.
I misspoke on the 2" square, it is 2" x 2", so 4" square. I'm not sure that I agree that theirs is 6" x 3", but even if it is that would mean that the prop size would have to be about 1.25" and that doesn't work for a 6" x 3" vehicle. There isn't enough thrust and the motors at that size don't provide enough RPM's for that kind of weight.
On the electronic side, they show it connecting to a smart phone with video feedback. That means you have to have bluetooth at least, or a 5.4ghz video system if you want more than 30' range. or it has to have a Wifi TX on it. All of those thing require power. Sure it could analyze the video signal to determine subject matter, and provide guidance but you have some very serious issues there. If you do it on board it requires some processor power (More drain), if you do it on the smart phone app it will create lag.
Your phone has over 1,000 mAh in it (1440 in Iphone 5), that is a TON (4-10x) more than what this thing would have. Battery technology may be a big research project right now, but there isn't anything on the horizon that will get them to where they need to be. Most of the tech research is in sub 1C rated batteries for things like full size cars. Something like this needs a 10C rating minimum if not a 20C rating. Unfortunately most of the upcoming technology can not handle drains that fast. Things tend to go "Boom!". When you do something small, and even 6" x 3" is small, you have very serious power vs weight issues. It all comes down to issues of power density, and nothing exists today that will give it to them as they would need..

So right now these guys need to figure out:
1) A new light weight material that can lock rigid but also bend as needed in multiple directions.
2) A new battery technology that allows them to get the power they need, for a 6 axis gyro, 4 motors, control board,a RX, a HD camera and some sort of VTX while reducing weight. How long it powers all of that would be open, but if it is under 10 minutes I think people would be a little disgruntled. Right now people are wanting the video quads to get about 30-45 minutes of flight time on the 5200+mAh batteries.
3) Write code that allows them to analyze video in real time so as to provide object tracking and avoidance without lag while capable of running on a smartphone. It would also need to return to home when the battery runs low. That would be a little tricky on a cliff face, or if you are riding a bike through a forest. Another issue is that they tilt the camera down, they don't say if this is actuated, or done by hand, but it could lead to serious issues with programming object avoidance if you can't see anything above you.
4) Since they show the image as HD on the phone screen, they would also need to come up with a new way to broadcast HD video wirelessly. Right now that system costs $40K and is rather large.

All in all it is a dream product that people are going to get suckered into funding it. Some tech may come out of it that could be monetized, but I don't see the item coming out in this format, at least not in the next 3-5 years. You'd be better off going with AirDog.

That is fucking amazing. He's able to use his whole body to replace the fine motor control that most of us have and still manages to pull something off that most of us can't. This guy is some kinda genius.

OK, so here's the thing:
- Taily wags when your excited, not when you're happy: it reacts to heart rate.
- That's not a flying lawnmower, that's a remote control single-wing model aircraft built to look like a lawnmower. There's a propeller on the front. It cannot cut grass.
- Babywings - ok, call it a straightjacket if you must, but haven't you all heard of swaddling clothes? Like from Jesus in a manger type stories? Yep, swaddling clothes involve tightly wrapping a baby in fabric to restrict their arm movements. Why? Because their poor motor control / skills mean that their arms flail uncontrollably and unsettle the child. Having them wrapped up allows them to relax, and to rest. Yes, this practice has been around for thousands of years.
- That vehicle is parrot *operated*, not parrot powered.
- Binocular soccer was a one-off stunt for a Japanese gameshow, it's not a real thing.

Science fiction can justify anything because almost anything IS possible. Suspension of disbelief plays too much into our own environment and timeline -- think about your own life as a stage play 400 years ago and MAYBE you'll consider suspending it a bit more.

His hands glow when he touches a mobile device, so for crying out loud, maybe he has extra signals planted in his brain (via nanotech) to provide additional motor control via WiFi, thus steering the motorcycle with one hand. I just listened to a PhD in bioengineering at Wonder Con say that the idea of creating new signals in the brain for additional limb control is not so far fetched. ("Science in Science Fiction" panel by the authors of this book.)

However, lack of exposition in any shape or form does not work for me -- it's just fantasy at that point. I don't need to be eviscerated by constant exposition, but I need to at least know the ground rules. I felt like this was a subpar combination of Advent Children, the T2 motorcycle chase scene and every Half Life chase scene. More stimulation for my brains PLZ.

(On a side note: BUT! it was good fun and was made to display technical skill, not simply to be judged by a group of non-industry laymen, so upvote because the team who made this has TALENT.)

Washington? Optimal Control? Must be Todorov.

When you read the motor control literature, you quickly realize the importance of uncertainties. They are pervasive. Every sensor has a resolution, and every motor command given has a latency. That means that you are always using imperfect data to predict some future state of the world. The further ahead you try to predict, the more small errors in measurement become large errors in prediction. So no, these aren't exact calculations. Like most motor control problems, it is probabilistic. In fact, optimal motor control in this context (Todorov's primary line of work) generally refers to a control scheme that is optimized to minimize endpoint error. The fact that there is error to minimize implies that these calculations aren't exact.

Interesting bit of irony here - an amazingly ambidextrous street artist with obviously excellent motor control being filmed by someone who has neither, or is the inventor of the shaky-cam.

Vimeo:

44 wooden slats, motors, control electronics, video camera
56 x 56 x 4" / 142 x 142 x 10 cm
edition of 8

Known for his longstanding investigation of image creation – be it in response to woven fabric, stone mosaics or today’s pixel – Daniel Rozin studies the very nature of modern structure. Comprised of forty-four wooden slats arranged horizontally and vertically, X by Y takes its name from the Cartesian axes that organize a picture plane.

bitforms.com/daniel-rozin-gallery.html

"It's often said that an adult chimpanzee weighing in at 150 pounds is three to seven times stronger than a human being."

What's the story? Not a lot was known until recently about this issue, but a study published this April in the journal Current Anthropology explored the issue at a new level of detail.

Our surplus motor neurons allow us to engage smaller portions of our muscles at any given time. We can engage just a few muscle fibers for delicate tasks like threading a needle, and progressively more for tasks that require more force. Conversely, since chimps have fewer motor neurons, each neuron triggers a higher number of muscle fibers. So using a muscle becomes more of an all-or-nothing proposition for chimps. As a result, chimps often end up using more muscle than they need.

Our finely-tuned motor system makes a wide variety of human tasks possible. Without it we couldn't manipulate small objects, make complex tools or throw accurately. And because we can conserve energy by using muscle gradually, we have more physical endurance—making us great distance runners.
Great apes, with their all-or-nothing muscle usage, are explosive sprinters, climbers and fighters, but not nearly as good at complex motor tasks.

In addition to fine motor control, Walker suspects that humans also may have a neural limit to how much muscle we use at one time. Only under very rare circumstances are these limits bypassed—as in the anecdotal reports of people able to lift cars to free trapped crash victims.

"Add to this the effect of severe electric shock, where people are often thrown violently by their own extreme muscle contraction, and it is clear that we do not contract all our muscle fibers at once," Walker writes. "So there might be a degree of cerebral inhibition in people that prevents them from damaging their muscular system that is not present, or not present to the same degree, in great apes." Source

Semi-useful.

An opponent in a real fight will have heightened pain resistance due to adrenalin and obviously won't stand there.

"You" will have an enormous loss of fine motor control to effect these techniques due to adrenalin.

Nuts, eyes, throat or better yet run.

"I'm alright!" *face slams into the ground* lol
you got me there, I've no clue what this guy was on...
looks like he had vertigo pretty bad, and sudden loss of motor control under the illusion that he was just fine....
pretty funny

2. Less surface area? I'm not about to do any 3-d modeling to disprove that, but is seems standing upright opens more of your skin up to UV radiation. Besides, back in the days of an atmosphere and o-zone, this wasn't an issue.
3.Focused hands to do other things? Why didn;t we evolve a couple extra arms then?
4. Field of vision and viewing distance... the ability to climb trees seems to offer that and a better vantage than standing alone...


I was going to tell you to just continue being ignorant and leave the thinking to grown-ups, but...

2. Yes, less surface area exposed to UV radiation. Picture a light bulb on the ceiling. Stand up underneath it. Then get down on all fours or hunched over underneath it... which position do you think exposes more surface area? And UV radiation has always been harmful in large quantities, it's just worse now with the hole in the ozone layer.

3. Why should we evolve extra arms when we can just evolve specialized feet for walking and specialized hands for manipulating things? Extra arms pose a whole lot of complexity issues, add body mass, require more brain power be allocated to motor control, and so on..

4. You just don't understand evolution... an organism that has a large field of vision and long viewing distance will tend to survive and pass its genes on more frequently than an organism that has to take the time and effort to climb a tree in order to get a better view... assuming there are any trees around to climb.

Evolution is not directed by any force or towards any design. It's just a product of whether the physical or behavioral manifestation of a gene mutation confers any surival or reproductive advantadge.

it's actually a small private lutheran academy, halon.

i think we squirm when we see this because humans are so into their own individuality ... we can't imagine another person always being there with us. if you were born this way it would not seem abnormal to you to ... go to the bathroom, explore your body, take a shower, etc ... i think the hensel's have done a beautiful job raising their daughters!


In reply to your comment, wumpus:

“I wish I had seen the whole documentary too since I have questions of my own...like since they share the same body, does one head do all the eating?” no, they each eat and have their own likes/dislikes and do not share an esophagus nor stomach ... they do, however, share a large and small intestine.

If they get hurt, do they feel the same pain? it depends on where they were injured ... if it was the left arm or leg, then abby feels the pain ... if it's on the right, then brittany feels the pain.

Also since they have separate brains, does one have primary motor control, or do they often come into conflict? this is why i felt choggie's original comment was out of place ... abby & brittany possess some of the most amazing qualities in cooperation, compromise, and conflict resolution. since birth, they have figured out how to run, walk, clap, drive, pass papers back and forth, swim, bike ride, play piano, send emails, etc ... this is only possible through their learned coordination with each other.

Can one feel happy while the other feels sad? absolutely!! in their own words, they are “just two people…stuck together.” ”

As fascinating as this oddity of nature is, it's even more fascinating to see how they adjust to the changing world around them, and how the rest of the world reacts to it. I saw a documentary several years ago when (I'm pretty sure it was the same people) they were about 6 or 7 years old and they definitively identified themselves as two separate people.

I wish I had seen the whole documentary too since I have questions of my own...like since they share the same body, does one head do all the eating? If they get hurt, do they feel the same pain? Also since they have separate brains, does one have primary motor control, or do they often come into conflict? Can one feel happy while the other feels sad?