ThermalRunaway
New Member
Did anyone else see the really interesting documentary which channel 5 (UK) showed earlier this evening? It was quite a lengthy documentary about a team of engineers who create life-like "movie monsters" for a living. The team of engineers decided to do a personal project, the aim of which was to create a life-like subermsable loch ness monster and test it out in the real loch ness lake during peak season to see if they could convince tourists that they were seeing the real loch ness monster!
The documentary was really interesting, it took you through the building of the monster from scratch, the problems that they experienced (there were many) and eventually they showed the end experiment where they convinced a boat-load of sight seeing tourists that the loch ness monster was swimming nearby! The robotics involved were fairly simple, the team were able to control a pneumatic jaw (open and close) and they were also able to move the neck from side to side, giving the impression that the monster was looking around. Using a custom made base (which the monster was mounted on) and a team of divers they were able to give a real life-like impression which included swimming around, moving around and even diving! The end result was quite eery. I don't blame the tourists for believing the hoax as it really did look real.
I don't know whether anyone else saw the programme but it really was quite interesting.
Brian
The documentary was really interesting, it took you through the building of the monster from scratch, the problems that they experienced (there were many) and eventually they showed the end experiment where they convinced a boat-load of sight seeing tourists that the loch ness monster was swimming nearby! The robotics involved were fairly simple, the team were able to control a pneumatic jaw (open and close) and they were also able to move the neck from side to side, giving the impression that the monster was looking around. Using a custom made base (which the monster was mounted on) and a team of divers they were able to give a real life-like impression which included swimming around, moving around and even diving! The end result was quite eery. I don't blame the tourists for believing the hoax as it really did look real.
I don't know whether anyone else saw the programme but it really was quite interesting.
Brian