Robot Car?

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LYScienceLover
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Robot Car?

Postby LYScienceLover » 14 years ago

In the first episode of the classic series Dr Tenma says that his son can't drive a robot car. That made me wonder if the robot cars are really robots. To me a robot car is a car that can drive all by itself. And lots of work have been done on real robot cars. Ever heard of the DARPA challenges? So in conclusion, the robot car that Dr Tenma was talking about could not be a robot car because it still needed someone behind the wheel. If it was a real robot car it would have been able to drive all by itself and Toby would not have had his accident and thus there would be no Astro Boy. So what are your thoughts about this?
Last edited by LYScienceLover on Thu Apr 08, 2010 2:42 am, edited 1 time in total.

sgupta
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Postby sgupta » 14 years ago

Hmmm...interesting. I've only watched it once so far, but in the 80's series, I'm pretty sure it's explained it is a robot car and accidents aren't *supposed* to happen, but it did nonetheless. I'm paraphrasing, but my impression at the time was even though it's a technology driven society, technology too can make mistakes/have errors.

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AprilSeven
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Postby AprilSeven » 14 years ago

In the 1960's American version Astor/Toby was driving at "supersonic speeds" on Electronic Highway 66. If memory serves, the narrator said the highway controlled everything -- and nothing could go wrong -- "or could it?"

It looked like he drove into a city center -- maybe that wasn't as reliable, as that was where the accident occurred. I don't remember the car being described as a robot (or Astor/Toby being under any distress -- he was zooming along with a big ol' smile on his face).

What's cool is my husband (a technical illustrator) just finished a spread for a science magazine showing just how one of this works (yes, it's on the way) -- cars and satellites communicate to control speed, spacing, braking and parking as well as alternate routes the drivers don't have to do a thing!

Now if ONLY we had the flying cars!!

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jeffbert
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Postby jeffbert » 14 years ago

In the B&W version, Fred Ladd felt that audiences would not empathize with a kid who drove into a truck, so, they changed the dialogue to make it as though everything was automatic. I do not think that the dialogue in the '80s version was thus changed.
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