Fans of gundam and mech anime, your dreams of one day manning a piloted suit of armor might be closer than you think.
For those of you who don’t know, a South Korean robotics manufacturer debuted its first prototype for piloted mech over Christmas weekend called The Method-2. This manned, bipedal robot is the first of it kind and stands over 13 feet tall, weighs 1.3 tons, and has a pair of motion tracking arms that weigh 268 pounds. The powerful suit was created for the purpose of allowing humans access to areas with extreme conditions that we would normally be unable to survive in. The creators of the mech employed the services of Hollywood SFX designer, Vitaly Bulgarov, who has worked on Transformers and Terminator. While the robot is still very much a prototype, the developers released an exciting video a few days ago.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfBDKK-aZ0E[/embedyt]
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As you can see in the video above, the piloted suit has taken its first, literally earth-shaking, baby steps with a human pilot. This is an exciting step forward but it still has a lot of work ahead of it. Obviously, the machine is a bit shaky even while tethered to the platform above it. The main problem is finding a source large enough to power the mech for an extended amount of time. Once the development is done, they have plans to attach the top part to tethered platforms or a wheeled base to traverse rockier terrains.
Despite the long road ahead, the CEO of the robotics company, Yang Jin-Ho, has predicted the mech will be finished by the end of 2017. Aside from its original purpose, people in the manufacturing and entertainment industries have inquired about the new robotics. Anyone interested should be able to purchase them for a mere $8.3 billion a piece.
In the past year, robots, drones, and virtual reality have become regular topics of discussion. We are finally seeing things that could once only be believed as science fiction finding their way into our everyday lives. It seems that the sky is the limit these days and we can’t wait to see what comes next.
