This is a question to the people who pilot real robots: is it really comparable to video games?
You know, I have never controlled robots other than your occasional radio-controlled car as a kid, but it seems to me that there is much more involved than just learning the controls. Most notably: keeping the balance. As a video game programmer, I’d want to make controlling a character as simple and easy as possible, but is that really viable with a robot that is bound by real physical rules, and who tumbles over if the balance is even a slight bit off?
This is criticism, but I don’t think that it’ll hurt this series that much. I personally think that Btooom’s lack of realism in its bombs is a bigger flaws. Still, I think it’s worth to think about how robots would really move in order to better understand this series, compared to doing this when the plot twists really start coming and all hell breaks loose, based on these flaws. I remember having trouble to accept some of Steins;Gate’s biggest plot points (which I won’t mention here due to spoilers).
In any case, this episode was surprisingly witty. I liked how the characters already went to a local robot tournament and had a bit of fun in the matches, but especially that Pleiades guy was a very nice twist. It’s a very creative way to introduce a new character. This episode also introduced the actual character of Frau, and her character too seemed pretty interesting based on her off-screen actions and that single smirk of her.
What I also like is how this show also has exciting music in quiet scenes, most notably the build-up scene right before the match.
Rating: 5/8 (Great)
Unfortunately, I haven’t read the visual novel or manga for this one, so I don’t know what to expect. However, I’m enjoying this for the slice of life it is.
A great show in my opinion, it’s only problem is that it came after Steins;Gate, therefore causing people (as you’ve mentioned before) to expect some sort of Steins;Gate part 2.
Liking this series so far. Kaito was a little annoying the past episodes but this time he was great both in his interactions and his acting moments. The series is also revealing it’s background setting slowly but in an interesting way with the mentions of that Aurora-like thing in the sky and what it seems to be Kaito having an opposite disease to Aki’s (let’s also remember that he was accused by Frau of having reactions way to fast to be possible). The episode in general was quite entertaining and I couldn’t help to laugh when Kaito revealed Pleiades identity in front of everyone.
As for robot control (I’m no expert either and frankly don’t really talk much with those down the hall that are), consider the way the controls are mapped to the robot motions.
The robots here look like the traditional sort, with servo motors for each joint. The low-level inputs to the robot would more or less be voltages (equivalently, the current or power delivered) sent to each motor. There is a lot of theory here on linear and nonlinear controls for robots, relating to kinematics, about how that translates to actual movement.
So how far are the human controls abtracted from the low-level signals sent to the robot? You could have a one-to-one mapping of motors to buttons, all the way up to button presses being mapped to desired high-level outcomes like “move forward” with all the issues of moving individual motors up to the software. If there are enough sensors and appropriate feedback, maybe the software can handle everything to do with balance (and so on) for you. Of course, the more abstraction you have, the higher the stability of the robot, etc., the more performance you are leaving on the table.
The bigger issue to me is how he’s using touchscreen controls. Okay, I’m being a little facetious, but the poor mode of haptic feedback is not really conducive to competitive gaming—-probably not so much better for robot piloting either.
I like this response. I agree that his “Kill Ballad” controls are of the high-level variety, with the input “combos” being specific pre-programmed motions.
The in-game physics in Kill Ballad may be quite realistic, considering the futuristic setting, so a long “move forward” command followed immediately by a “move backward” command wouldn’t actually cause the robot to do both motions; if anything, it would likely cause the robot to stop — as abruptly as possible without sending the feet too far behind the center of gravity to cause it to trip.
This kind of low-level control is synchronized by the physics algorithm in Kill Ballad — with constants and coefficients adjusted to match the specific morphology of their robot.
I am quite inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt on this one.
However steins;gate did go into time travel a great deal in the anime and visual novel. John Titor, kerr black holes, lifters…The visual novel even went as far to cover all time theories proposed and have Kurisu explain how unrealistic they were. But that’s what made things worst once the story just said “F*ck it” and then time travel did whatever the hell it wanted regardless of whether it made sense or not.
I think robotics;notes would be shot down straight away as the idea of giant bipedal robots is straight out impossible due to the huge weight the legs would need to carry.
For now, especially bipedal robot like the anime, it’s a resounding no. Your body goes through so much auto correction of balance just walking that it’s difficult to mimic. Though things with wheels and arm movements, the precision can be there as far as controls goes
You’ll notice that they add gyro’s for stability to the bot. It’s one of the things that the old guy ‘throws in’ with the battery. Anyway it’s certainly possible, just unlikely to have this all written up within a period of 2 weeks.
Was I the only one that caught the Star Driver references?
I’m not sure I’d call this slice of life as others have been just yet. Its a good show. I’m not really sure what to expect but I guess we’ll see.
I am already tired of that boy with his tablet.
Last episode gave him a bit of depth by the “protecting sick girl” theme, but it looks more superficially added than real character development, because he still doesn’t look like someone who would leave his tablet to help anyone.
This episode he finally gets to do something else… and instead he receives miraculous help to continue everything without leaving his darn tablet.
This looks like one of those stories where everybody has a specialty that contributes to a whole. And his specialty happens to require that tablet.
There’s more to that though. What’s with the red northern light over that part of Japan? I don’t think that’s a normal phenomenon. What happened to these two on that ship when they were kids? And it looks like it might not be only the girl that’s ill. It looks like the girl’s older sister knows something about it. And where does the mysterious teleporting girl that quotes phrases from Chaos;Head fit in?