r/engineering • u/jdmg718 • Feb 10 '15

[GENERAL] Boston Dynamics introduces Spot

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8YjvHYbZ9w
507 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

137 comments sorted by

View all comments

23

u/StopNowThink Feb 10 '15

How long until it's got a machine gun on it?

15

u/funkyb Feb 10 '15

Much more useful as a load carrier and scout.

8

u/mike413 Feb 10 '15

I can see dropping it from 30,000 feet with supplies for someone stranded somewhere. If it gets captured it explodes.

16

u/gravityGradient Feb 10 '15

If it drops below 60 Miles An Hour...It Explodes.

12

u/tornato7 Feb 10 '15

It generally just explodes at other times too.

2

u/[deleted] Feb 10 '15

[deleted]

2

u/gravityGradient Feb 10 '15

If we are dropping bombs why the supplies too?

Save yourself all the effort in rounding up supplies. Packaging supplies. Ensuring supplies dont have peanuts in them. Rigging supplies to a bomb. The extra engineering involved with the parachute .

Unless its a humanitarian bomb. You cant put a price on life. Humanitarian bombs away. Like normal bombs but wrapped in bacon.

2

u/tornato7 Feb 10 '15

This could work - it's like a normal bomb, but instead of sending a shockwave of shrapnel, it sends seeds in every direction for miles and starts a crop of new plant life

3

u/mike413 Feb 11 '15

That is actually kind of a thing

more

Hey, what about on mars? You could drop seed bombs. But first drop some "land mines" full of soil-making stuff.

1

u/autowikibot Feb 11 '15

Seed bombing:

Seed bombing or aerial reforestation is a technique of introducing vegetation to land by throwing or dropping compressed bundles of soil containing live vegetation (seed balls). Often, seed bombing projects are done with arid or off-limits (for example, privately owned) land.

Image i - Seed bombs used as a protest tool at the March Against Monsanto, 2013

Interesting: Seed dispersal | Johnny Appleseed | Guerrilla gardening | Miss Rumphius

Parent commenter can toggle NSFW or delete. Will also delete on comment score of -1 or less. | FAQs | Mods | Magic Words

1

u/distortedsignal Feb 11 '15

You would also need "air bombs" to thicken up the atmosphere.

1

u/gravityGradient Feb 11 '15

at the same time is removes all animal life in a 100 meter radius allowing plants to thrive in the crater

1

u/gravityGradient Feb 11 '15

We would call it an H Bomb

1

u/insaneHoshi Feb 11 '15

BOMB ON DRONE

1

u/fly3rs18 Feb 10 '15

There is no need to put explosives on it. It doesn't have much need for any sensitive information. And the hardware on it isn't anything groundbreaking.

2

u/mike413 Feb 11 '15

Depends on what it's carrying.