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Russians Plan Railroad Gandydancer Robots
A group of Russian robots talked and even danced in the Riga train station to prepare the public for the day when robots will perform the dangerous jobs instead of people. Speaking on behalf of its maker, Android Robotics Corp., an AR-400 robot greeted visitors and described itself, saying "Hello. I am the AR-400, Russia's first working robot. My height is forty centimeters and my weight is seventy kilograms. Thank you for your attention."
(Russian railroad robot AR-400)
Visitors to the station were informed by staff that one day, Russian-made robots would be performing the dangerous jobs like coupling and uncoupling cars. They would even be equipped with Russia's equivalent of GPS, the Global Navigation Satellite System (ГЛОНАСС).
A group of smaller AR-100 robots put on quite a show, dancing for visitors.
(Dancing AR-100 Russian railroad robots)
In case you're wondering, "gandydancer" is a 19th century slang term for someone who works on and maintains railroads. The origin of the term is obscure; gandies were hand tools used to get tracks into position before being nailed down. An alternative explanation is that each heavy rail was roughly positioned by a small group of men who would carry the rail between their legs and "waddle" it into position; the men were called "ganders" after their waddling walk.
Via Polit.ru.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 12/21/2007)
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