• Question: Could you make a whole functioning robot like the hand in the studio and send it into space. You could try to connect it with the occulous rift and it could be like you are in space!

    Asked by ilikecake to Andy, Fi, Mousumi, Steve on 29 Jan 2015. This question was also asked by potato.
    • Photo: Steve Cox

      Steve Cox answered on 29 Jan 2015:

      Many tasks in space are already carried out by robotics because of the extreme environment. The International Space Station now has a 3D printer and they have started by printing some simple things and they printed a spanner last month. As they develop it’s use further the tools they make will become more complex and I’m sure they’ll be printing things for robotics before very long.

    • Photo: Andy Hearn

      Andy Hearn answered on 29 Jan 2015:

      Right now, you’d feel some kind of delay between moving your own hand and then seeing it move in the ‘occulus rift’ system if the cameras are in space. This delay most likely won’t be any longer than a few seconds, but would be enough for some weird sensations 🙂 This is due to the amount of time “messages” from the glove on your hand need to travel into space to trigger the movements of the robotic hand, and then for the imagery from the cameras to travel back to the OR headset.

      I guess that there will be technology in place in the near future to reduce this delay right down to near zero – hopefully so!

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