Face shovel excavator bucket - GIF

[nova_robotics]

Many years ago, steam shovels used a very similar style of bucket action. That evolved into the familiar shoulder-elbow-wrist configuration of modern excavators. This machine is almost a full circle of that, except with hydraulics and diesel instead of ropes, cables, and steam.

Hydraulic Shovels have completely replaced every other digging machine in the oil sands. Everything else is obsolete. They're very neat, but they're reversed from a conventional excavator. Hydraulic Shovels dig away and excavators dig towards you.

Edit: Okay I was replying to someone above and really don't know what happened to the conversation. Looks like things went off the rails from hydraulic digging apparatuses.