A Fire Breathing Robo-Beast

Don’t call Lyle Rowell’s giant fire-breathing robot a dog. The artist, who lives in Rimini, Italy, insists that his 1,900-pound creation, Lrry (pronounced “Larry”), is actually a cloven-hooved, two-legged, half-donkey, half-raptor-type-reptile.

The contraption is the product of four months of Rowell “crawling around in the scrap and dirt” to gather parts that he liked. He took an engine from an old Volkswagen Bug–like Citroën and stuffed it into two chopped-up and welded-together motorcycle frames. Aside from propane for Lrry’s fire breath, Rowell was able to scrounge up nearly every part, all the way down to the linkages and sprockets.

A chain-driven crankshaft moves Lrry’s legs, and an electric-hydraulic pump turns the wheels in the back. Its top speed is a poky 0.6 mph, but Rowell isn’t ashamed of his robo-pet’s sluggishness. “I believe,” he jokes, “that it was Confucius who said, ‘It does not matter how slowly you go, so long as you do not stop.’” LINK, Via: Metafilter, Via: Neatorama, Via: Youtube