Robert Playter

His first cut at Legged Locomotion was a pogo stick where it's bouncing and there's a spring mass.

a system that's oscillating, has its own sort of natural frequency there, and sort of figuring out how to augment those natural physics

with also intent, how do you then control that but not overpower it?

It's that coordination that I think creates real potential.

We could call it beauty.

You could call it, I don't know, synergy.

People have different words for it.

But I think that that was inherent from the beginning.

That was clear to me that that's part of what Mark was trying to do.

He asked me to do that in my research work.

So that's where it got going.

It's definitely more efficient.

It also becomes easier to control in its own way because the physics are solving some of the problem itself.

It's not like you have to do all this calculation and overpower the physics.

The physics naturally, inherently want to do the right thing.

There can even be feedback mechanisms, stabilizing mechanisms that occur simply by virtue of the physics of the body.

And it's not all in the computer or not even all in your mind as a person.

And there's something interesting in that melding.

The memories, the distinctive lessons, I would say, I learned in that time period and that I think Mark was a great teacher of was it's okay to pursue your interests, your curiosity, do something because you love it.

You'll do it a lot better if you love it.