Tbh they probably did, there’s likely more profit in it as a luxury sex toy than in prosthetics or manufacturing.
I work in prosthetics and have seen a couple of tentacle-like terminal end devices made over the years, but they all fail to truly be useful for anything.
They fall into the category of being not efficient enough for specific or universal uses. For something like manufacturing they aren’t as efficient as building a specific tool for a specific purpose, and for something like a prosthetic they aren’t useful enough to overcome the fact that most things we interact with everyday are made to work with something in the shape of a hand.
So an expensive space dildo is likely the most profitable option if they can bring it to market at an achievable price. But honestly, most of these things are mainly created as an eye grabbing marketing scheme for some universities research department.
It’s not meant for prosthetics or manufacturing. It’s a robot that can get into tight spaces without depending on wheels, tracks, or legs, which are likely to get hung up on corners and debris. It could be used to, for example, crawl into rubble, or explore irregular caves. If it’s designed right it could be made pretty cheaply, even. Biggest downside is that it can’t climb, but that problem exists with most other robot designs as well.
It essentially has the same issue. How many scenarios can we think of that need something that can crawl into rubble or explore irregular caves, but without the ability to climb? It’s what happens when a design’s aesthetic is developed before its function.
When aesthetics is the selling point of an engineering project then the aesthetics is its purpose. In this case it’s to advertise a university’s research department.
Tbh they probably did, there’s likely more profit in it as a luxury sex toy than in prosthetics or manufacturing.
I work in prosthetics and have seen a couple of tentacle-like terminal end devices made over the years, but they all fail to truly be useful for anything.
They fall into the category of being not efficient enough for specific or universal uses. For something like manufacturing they aren’t as efficient as building a specific tool for a specific purpose, and for something like a prosthetic they aren’t useful enough to overcome the fact that most things we interact with everyday are made to work with something in the shape of a hand.
So an expensive space dildo is likely the most profitable option if they can bring it to market at an achievable price. But honestly, most of these things are mainly created as an eye grabbing marketing scheme for some universities research department.
It’s not meant for prosthetics or manufacturing. It’s a robot that can get into tight spaces without depending on wheels, tracks, or legs, which are likely to get hung up on corners and debris. It could be used to, for example, crawl into rubble, or explore irregular caves. If it’s designed right it could be made pretty cheaply, even. Biggest downside is that it can’t climb, but that problem exists with most other robot designs as well.
It essentially has the same issue. How many scenarios can we think of that need something that can crawl into rubble or explore irregular caves, but without the ability to climb? It’s what happens when a design’s aesthetic is developed before its function.
When aesthetics is the selling point of an engineering project then the aesthetics is its purpose. In this case it’s to advertise a university’s research department.