Here’s something that slipped by me a few months ago: A group called On-Art Corp in Tokyo unvieled their 8m tall (26 ft) mechanical suit robot dinosaurs back in November.
You can check them out in the above video. They’re apparently TRX03 robots with human operators inside (who, as far as I can tell, walk for them), and the effect is pretty good. Their exteriors are based on dinosaur fossils, and the unveiling included a Tyrannosaurus Rex, an Allosaurus, and raptors.
What’s interesting is On-Art’s intention to potentially use these creations in a dinosaur amusement park, something CEO Kazua Kanemaru is calling Dino-A-Park.
I think it might be a cool idea, and at least one way to avoid a Jurassic Park-level catastrophe: just simulate what it’d be like to have the dinosaurs roaming out and about. A kind of outdoor theater experience, with actors and robots playing the roles of prehistoric beasts, and guests watching from a distance. It wouldn’t be the real thing, far from it, but I imagine it’d be a lot simpler than genetically engineering extinct species like dinosaurs…and, you know, everything that goes along with that.
Then again, robots.
If you’re interested, back in 2011 io9 shared On-Art’s original patent for their dinosaur costume suits complete with a diagram, so you can see how the human fits in.
