technology

i can't watch the video thru this link but from what i gather its like the boston dynamics robodog but with wheels for feet. adding wheels to robot legs is probably the Coolest design choice possible. it's ingenious really, you need something to be the 'foot', and that something might as well have built-in shock absorption and also spin to provide a traversal option that circumvents the major disadvantage of legged vehicles, speed on flat ground, without removing the capacity to use the legs to traverse more complicated terrain. skating quadruped robots might even handle terrain at speed that a car or traditional UGV might not ever be able to handle, using the agility provided by legs to position wheels. i want my car to be an oversized one of these so badly. i can't wait until someone makes a useable larger bipedal version of this, make my skating mecha dreams come true!

frankly tho i would just put the wheels on the main chassis separate from the legs for simplicity's sake, used with legs folded more like a traditional wheeled craft, so the wheels are still useable if the legs break and you don't have to put electric motors or wiring or whatever in inconvenient places through the legs. it would lose a little agility without 'mech skating' but i think it might be worth it for reliability/ease of manufacture/repair.