Dinosaur to roam free at Disney park

That's simply AMAZING! I hope they install a few in Paris ;)

It seems to be more appropriate for Animal Kingdom. I think they showed this on the Discovery Imagineering show a few months back. At least, it was a preliminary look at it.

Sounds good. Now, what is someone get's in his way? (see small kid trying to pet the robot, gets too close to his foot)

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My fellow Americans; Let's Roll!
Woodencoaster.com
The World of Thrills

Not to be picky... but 'dinosuar'? I suppose I should make this post 100% perfect with respect to grammar and punctuation now.

As for this idea. Very interesting, though my first thought was the street parade robots in Itchy & Scratchy Land, which inevitably took over the theme park . Seriously, though I do think that this will be a very interesting concept, but unless there have been huge advances in the past few months with robots, it'll have that typical animatronic style of movement to it, which you either love or loathe (put my name down for the second one).

EDIT: And now my original comment has been made redundant. :)

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So what if the best coaster in Australia is a second hand Arrow? *** This post was edited by auscoasterman on 12/23/2002. ***

I think there was footage of it on a resent Travel Channel "behind the scenes" type show on Disney Imagineers.

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-Joey-
Lord of the ditch

This is amazing technology, and I'm really surprised that other people haven't jumped on it a bit faster.

The article said, "Disney chose a dinosaur because children are so fascinated with them, Sklar said, plus 'it's a large enough character to get their attention.'" . . . heh. It's also large enough to house the mechanics of the thing :)

http://www.itec.com/pr/aquamatronics/aqua1.htm

...they used to have a video on their site somewhere showing the dolphin in action. It, too, is amazing.

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Oh sure, you say it's amazing. But just wait until they start making other types of robot animals. Pretty soon, the world will be overrun with replicants! You can't be too careful these days. :)

Seriously, that would be simply awesome to see. You gotta love those Imagineers.

(Please note, the above post is filled with sarcasm and does not necessarily represent the views of Coasterbuzz, or anyone for that matter.)

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"I feel like I'm diagonally parked in a parallel universe."

Better watch out, Disney may be the first to clone M:TR and have it capable of running reliably 24/7.

Disney refers to the models as A-4s and a-100s...not too different from the model numbers in Terminator (T-100s and T-1000s). Kind of scary, actually. I wonder if the military is interested in this technology, and if it would be worth the expense.

I guess if cloning breeds all kinds of ethical and moral issues, then you can go ahead and build animals and people instead.

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It's still me, here from the beginning back in 1999. Add 1500+ posts to the number I have in the info section if you care about such things.

I think I'll watch Blade Runner tomorrow. Seriously though, I think this will be an amazing thing to see .

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Joe Cernelli
Webmaster, Kennywood Boulevard
"Don't criticize what you can't understand."

....hmmm, dinosaurs roaming free....gotta wonder if this is just a cheap way to replace the "Lost Parents" booths...;).

And *if* Disney can get M:TR running reliably, THEN the *ImaginEars* really have accomplished a miraculous feat...

Opening near you soon "Westworld".

Is this dinosaur really the first test of untethered audio-animatronic? Has anyone else seen the (rather aggressive) talking trash can that roams Tomorrow Land in FL? (And does anyone know of others?) Granted, the trash can's not all that sophisticated (garbage can + wheels + camera + etc.) and has a live person behind the scenes for the voice/crowd interaction, but it *is* untethered. Given all the human intervention needed to run the thing, the trash bin probably doesn't qualify for audio-animatronic status - but the last time I saw it (FEB 2001), it was out in the crowd, interacting with people. Really amusing, to say the least!