Posted on 01/02/2008 9:13:12 PM PST by DogByte6RER
Japanese Robot Eats Snow, Poops Out Bricks of Ice
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
What's cute, yellow, eats snow and poops out bricks of ice?
Meet Yuki-taro, a Japanese robot built to quickly clear roads after heavy snows.
The cute little guy, about 5 feet long and 2 and a half feet high, simply plows into snowbanks, taking in the white stuff, compressing it and neatly stacking it in two-foot-long bricks on his rear bed.
Created by a consortium of private companies, municipal governments and university researchers, Yuki-taro is equipped with two video cameras in his "eyes" as well as a GPS tracking system to be completely self-guided.
The prototype has already won a design award, and doctored photos of it modified to look like the popular Pokemon character Pikachu have popped up online.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
That is just too awesome.
Nice idea 2DV ... but the standard GIGO rule applies here ... all y'd get is homogenized shit in block form.
Now, figger out how to form that block with a stick and we'd have the good ol' fashioned shit on a stick.
I don't have to I work there minus the internal logic.
I predict they’ll soon be selling the pooped-cubes to Orange County, which will recycle them for drinking water.
But the idea of a Roomba-like snowbot is a good one.
No, you stack 'em like firewood -- in a pile out of the way.
Absolutely correct. The Japanese are at the forefront in the coming field of popular robotics, where robots serve the ordinary person. In ten years time, we’ll see astonishing accomplishments. I desperately need a robot to clean my house - my wife is threatening to divorce me if I don’t get the first one off the assembly line.
What is with this Japanese fixation on pooping? (Anybody here besides me aware of the darker side of their adult entertainment?)
Freshly fallen snow is typically 10% or less the density of ice. If used for clearing roads it will greatly reduce the amount of storage space needed. When I lived in Alaska the mountains of snow removed from streets and parking lots were huge. This will help some areas.
I just want my R2 unit. That would be the ultimate -- like a pet who can fix your car.
"I'll give you three quatlooms for that one!!"
"How about the other one? No, no. The blue one."
The key words being "freshly-fallen." Snow that's been tromped by feet or tires, or even compacted by more snow on top of it, not so much.
We get infrequent snow here in Atlanta. Once, another kid hit me with a snowball, and it busted my lip -- there was a hunk of solid ice hidden in the middle with snow packed around it. I don't know whether that was deliberate, but I suspect so. Nathaniel was a nasty little shit.
When I lived in Alaska the mountains of snow removed from streets and parking lots were huge. This will help some areas.
The first time I saw huge amounts of snow was in Colorado, above two miles elevation. The roads through the mountain passes were like narrow canyons. Look left, look right, see nothing but white. Someone, presumably with a shovel, had carved out little semicircles to make the street signs visible.
A 'bot like this could at least make the mess more compact. It's weird to talk about water, in any form, as "mess," because in Georgia we're literally praying for it. But neat bricks of ice can be stacked and packed.
Haul them out to the lake and use them as building materials for igloo-style shacks so folks can engage in ice fishing. This Southern boy considers ice fishing a particularly acute form of insanity, but that's just me. In any case, come the spring thaw, the walls dissolve right along with the floor.
Now, if there's a reasonable way to pack that compacted ice into box cars or shipping containers and dump it into Lake Lanier, halle-freaking-lujah. Bring it on. But I doubt it's practical.
Most substances are more compact in solid form than liquid -- H2O is a rare exception, because its crystalline structure gives ice a larger volume for a given mass than liquid water. That is why ice cubes float, why freezing bursts pipes, and why freezing water in road cracks creates potholes.
In Anchorage, some of the piles of snow from road and parking lot removal are still around by late July.
The 30% was kind of an average of new snow, which is about 10% , and old snow, which can be from 40-60%. You're right, though, to use the 10% figure, because the snow cleared from a street or driveway would most likely be newly fallen snow.
Maybe you can stack dozens of 50 lb. blocks of ice, but that's not something I could do, and I wouldn't wish it on my husband either. Even if someone had the kind of space to store all of these blocks, what happens when the weather warms up? Unless the blocks are stored outside, there will be a huge mess in the storage shed or garage. Outside, the kids will view the ice mountain as a fun chance to play Antarctic explorer, with possibly disastrous consequences when the now melting blocks tumble in an unruly heap on top of the children.
Maybe you can shovel snow off a 1/2-mile long driveway, but not something I could do.
Even if someone had the kind of space to store all of these blocks, what happens when the weather warms up? Unless the blocks are stored outside, there will be a huge mess in the storage shed or garage.
When the weather warms up they melt. And you don't "store" them in your garage, you stack them up outside and they melt providing any nearby plants with a nice continuous supply of fresh water.
Outside, the kids will view the ice mountain as a fun chance to play Antarctic explorer, with possibly disastrous consequences when the now melting blocks tumble in an unruly heap on top of the children.
No less than how your kids will suffer when they dig tunnels through your heaps of snow and the snow tunnel collapses on them.
Did that as a child. Collapsed one a little too deep on my little brother. Neither he nor the 145 lb. German Shepard / Great Dane mix with him was amused. Even less amused was my father with his belt.
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