Infidel Ingenuity - Muslim Ingenuity

The Most Advanced Quadruped Robot on Earth
BigDog is the alpha male of the Boston Dynamics family of robots. It is a quadruped robot that walks, runs, and climbs on rough terrain and carries heavy loads. BigDog is powered by a gasoline engine that drives a hydraulic actuation system. BigDog's legs are articulated like an animal’s, and have compliant elements that absorb shock and recycle energy from one step to the next. BigDog is the size of a large dog or small mule, measuring 1 meter long, 0.7 meters tall and 75 kg weight.

BigDog has an on-board computer that controls locomotion, servos the legs and handles a wide variety of sensors. BigDog’s control system manages the dynamics of its behavior to keep it balanced, steer, navigate, and regulate energetics as conditions vary. Sensors for locomotion include joint position, joint force, ground contact, ground load, a laser gyroscope, and a stereo vision system. Other sensors focus on the internal state of BigDog, monitoring the hydraulic pressure, oil temperature, engine temperature, rpm, battery charge and others.

In separate trials, BigDog runs at 4 mph, climbs slopes up to 35 degrees, walks across rubble, and carries a 340 lb load.

BigDog is being developed by Boston Dynamics with the goal of creating robots that have rough-terrain mobility that can take them anywhere on Earth that people and animals can go. The program is funded by the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA).

And, as for Muslim ingenuity:


The Buzzing Prayer Rug

Amman - A Jordanian inventor has contrived a special prayer rug fitted with an electronic device intended to keep the Muslim faithful alert during prayers, the state-run Jordanian news agency Petra reported on Monday. 

Like many Muslims, Fawaz Abu Ragheb used to miss the number of times he had to kneel and touch his forehead to the rug during the five daily prayers that all devout Muslims must perform, the agency said. So he came up with the idea of fitting a sheet of metal equipped with an electronic device on the prayer rug on the spot where the forehead touches the carpet. 

Abu Ragheb said the device cost him 65 000 dinars to make but that he intends to commercialize it a price that would be “affordable” to all, according to Petra.He told the agency he was granted a special fatwa, religious decree, from several Muslim organisations including the Islamic research center of Al-Azhar, the Cairo-based authority on Sunni Islam, to ensure his device did not violate Islamic principles.