199 replies to this topic

[Kerensky The Last Mechbender]

Reverse legged mechs don't make sense to me I drew a helpful diagram here it is:

http://imgur.com/vWc1iEt


How do mechs walk what does what and where are their parts? I don't get it it's like, how do they move anywhere instead of just up and falling on their faces? It doesn't make sense to me maybe gyros??

[MoonUnitBeta]

Magic. Fiction. Fantasy. There's many words and many ways that give acceptable reason for why mechs can walk like that.

[Warrax the Chaos Warrior]

SPACE MAGIC!

It's just one of those things you have to accept if you are going to accept anything about this particular setting.

Also, they walk like birds, which are really really light weight, but it works for giant metal mechs too apparently.

[Kerensky The Last Mechbender]

But their legs would just go up in the air!!

http://imgur.com/y0OC4n5

[Darwins Dog]

It's not magic, they're filled with technological doodads and worky-bits.

[Kerensky The Last Mechbender]

Well I don't buy it sir not one bit.

[One Medic Army]

Look at the rear legs of a quadrupedal mamal, or the legs of a bird.
They work like that.

[Kerensky The Last Mechbender]

I'm beginning to think this whole mech thing might be entirely impractical if not completely IMPOSSIBLE!!

[Corvus Antaka]

They cant!

Bees can't fly either aparently.

It is well-known that a scientist (supposedly) once said that physics (or science) shows that a bee can't fly (or maybe that a fly can't be?). Bees do fly, by the way. This is a popular example of how stupid scientists can be. It is hard to disagree with that. There is some small amount of truth to the statement that a bee can't fly (see addendum, below). But, the statement demands to be misinterpreted, and that is far from being scientific.

Physicists sometimes derive equations that apply to airplanes. An airplane the size and shape of a bee could not fly. In other words, the wings of a bee cannot support the bee at the speeds that a bee normally flies, if the wings are held out motionless. Perhaps this hypothetical bee is being propelled by a tiny propeller on its nose. Well, such a bee would drop from the sky like a bee with stiff wings and a propeller on its nose. By the same equations, a helicopter cannot fly either.

What keeps an aircraft aloft is not forward speed, but rather the motion of air over, and under, the wings. Forward motion keeps air moving over an airplane's wings. But, against a strong head wind, an airplane can even remain aloft while flying backwards. The bee's (and the helicopter's) wings are not motionless, the wings themselves move (very rapidly) in order to make the air pass over the wings. Bees and helicopters (and hummingbirds) are famous for hovering motionless, because of this.

A real scientist would say that a bee can't glide. But wait, if he were going about 100 mi/hr ... never mind.

[Kerensky The Last Mechbender]

One medic army no they dont! I drew a diagram explaining why!!

Colonel Pada Vinson, on 13 February 2013 - 03:02 PM, said:

:words:

I am almost entirely certain most of this is not right!

Bonerlord420, on 13 February 2013 - 03:03 PM, said:

I am almost entirely certain most of this is not right!

http://www.livescien...e-bees-fly.html

Ah owned.

[Corvus Antaka]

google it

[Gallowglas]

If you can walk backwards while bending your knees, I think it's equally possible that a mech with gyrostabilizers of some sort could do so. It might not be ideal, but the basic reality check is that mech physics don't work anyway. Anything that big likely wouldn't be able to stay upright regardless of how their legs were positioned. That's not even taking into consideration the complete military impracticality of the whole thing.

[The Cheese]

420 for lyfe.

[Kerensky The Last Mechbender]

Colonel Pada Vinson, on 13 February 2013 - 03:04 PM, said:

google it

I literally just did it's how I found a page saying "scientist know how bees fly" it took like two seconds

[Warrax the Chaos Warrior]

Colonel Pada Vinson, on 13 February 2013 - 03:02 PM, said:

They cant!

Bees can't fly either aparently.

It is well-known that a scientist (supposedly) once said that physics (or science) shows that a bee can't fly (or maybe that a fly can't be?). Bees do fly, by the way. This is a popular example of how stupid scientists can be. It is hard to disagree with that. There is some small amount of truth to the statement that a bee can't fly (see addendum, below). But, the statement demands to be misinterpreted, and that is far from being scientific.

Physicists sometimes derive equations that apply to airplanes. An airplane the size and shape of a bee could not fly. In other words, the wings of a bee cannot support the bee at the speeds that a bee normally flies, if the wings are held out motionless. Perhaps this hypothetical bee is being propelled by a tiny propeller on its nose. Well, such a bee would drop from the sky like a bee with stiff wings and a propeller on its nose. By the same equations, a helicopter cannot fly either.

What keeps an aircraft aloft is not forward speed, but rather the motion of air over, and under, the wings. Forward motion keeps air moving over an airplane's wings. But, against a strong head wind, an airplane can even remain aloft while flying backwards. The bee's (and the helicopter's) wings are not motionless, the wings themselves move (very rapidly) in order to make the air pass over the wings. Bees and helicopters (and hummingbirds) are famous for hovering motionless, because of this.

A real scientist would say that a bee can't glide. But wait, if he were going about 100 mi/hr ... never mind.

I can copy/paste stuff too!


Of course. You think this is on a par with quantum mechanics? The basic principles of bumblebee flight, and insect flight generally, have been pretty well understood for many years. Somehow, though, the idea that bees "violate aerodynamic theory" got embedded in folklore.

According to an account at www.iop.org/Physics/News/0012i.1, the story was initially circulated in German technical universities in the 1930s. Supposedly during dinner a biologist asked an aerodynamics expert about insect flight. The aerodynamicist did a few calculations and found that, according to the accepted theory of the day, bumblebees didn't generate enough lift to fly. The biologist, delighted to have a chance to show up those arrogant SOBs in the hard sciences, promptly spread the story far and wide.

Once he sobered up, however, the aerodynamicist surely realized what the problem was--a faulty analogy between bees and conventional fixed-wing aircraft. Bees' wings are small relative to their bodies. If an airplane were built the same way, it'd never get off the ground. But bees aren't like airplanes, they're like helicopters. Their wings work on the same principle as helicopter blades--to be precise, "reverse-pitch semirotary helicopter blades," to quote one authority. A moving airfoil, whether it's a helicopter blade or a bee wing, generates a lot more lift than a stationary one.

The real challenge with bees wasn't figuring out the aerodynamics but the mechanics: specifically, how bees can move their wings so fast--roughly 200 beats per second, which is 10 or 20 times the firing rate of the nervous system. The trick apparently is that the bee's wing muscles (thorax muscles, actually) don't expand and contract so much as vibrate, like a rubber band. A nerve impulse comes along and twangs the muscle, much as you might pluck a guitar string, and it vibrates the wing up and down a few times until the next impulse comes along. Cecil is sliding over a few subtleties here, but nobody ever said science for the masses was pretty.

— Cecil Adams

[SilentSooYun]

They're not called "chicken walkers" because they lay eggs.
And yes... gyros. It's that fiddly bit in your CT that you can't change.

[Gallowglas]

Colonel Pada Vinson, on 13 February 2013 - 03:02 PM, said:

They cant!

Bees can't fly either aparently.

It is well-known that a scientist (supposedly) once said that physics (or science) shows that a bee can't fly (or maybe that a fly can't be?). Bees do fly, by the way. This is a popular example of how stupid scientists can be. It is hard to disagree with that. There is some small amount of truth to the statement that a bee can't fly (see addendum, below). But, the statement demands to be misinterpreted, and that is far from being scientific.

Physicists sometimes derive equations that apply to airplanes. An airplane the size and shape of a bee could not fly. In other words, the wings of a bee cannot support the bee at the speeds that a bee normally flies, if the wings are held out motionless. Perhaps this hypothetical bee is being propelled by a tiny propeller on its nose. Well, such a bee would drop from the sky like a bee with stiff wings and a propeller on its nose. By the same equations, a helicopter cannot fly either.

What keeps an aircraft aloft is not forward speed, but rather the motion of air over, and under, the wings. Forward motion keeps air moving over an airplane's wings. But, against a strong head wind, an airplane can even remain aloft while flying backwards. The bee's (and the helicopter's) wings are not motionless, the wings themselves move (very rapidly) in order to make the air pass over the wings. Bees and helicopters (and hummingbirds) are famous for hovering motionless, because of this.

A real scientist would say that a bee can't glide. But wait, if he were going about 100 mi/hr ... never mind.

http://www.straightd...mblebees-to-fly

Edit: Warrax beat me to it

Edited by Gallowglas, 13 February 2013 - 03:08 PM.

[Ghost_19Hz]

Yea how do they walk?
and for that matter...

[REDACTED] magnets man.... How do they work?

[Kerensky The Last Mechbender]

SilentSooYun, on 13 February 2013 - 03:06 PM, said:

They're not called "chicken walkers" because they lay eggs.
And yes... gyros. It's that fiddly bit in your CT that you can't change.

yeah but my point is the legs don't have enough joints and parts. from what I can see the leg can't actually get the foot far enough forward to go forward. unless the mech tips back and forth like a drinking bird as it walks??

[Corvus Antaka]

maybe we should pack it in since the mechs can't walk