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Japanese Robot Eats Snow, Poops Out Bricks of Ice
FoxNews.com ^ | Wednesday, January 02, 2008 | FoxNews.com SciTech

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 ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Miscellaneous; Science; Weird Stuff
KEYWORDS: ice; invention; pikachu; pokemon; robot; robots; scitech; snowcones; snowplow; technology; weird
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To: DogByte6RER

That is just too awesome.


41 posted on 01/03/2008 12:30:27 AM PST by forkinsocket
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To: 2ndDivisionVet
"We need a robot that eats journalists, democratic politicians and terrorists while it poops coal and pees gasoline...."

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.

42 posted on 01/03/2008 1:43:41 AM PST by knarf (I say things that are true ... I have no proof ... but they're true.)
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To: ReignOfError
Picture a swarm of robots acting in a seemingly random way, but with an internal logic and a human override that can send them all back to their docks.

I don't have to I work there minus the internal logic.

43 posted on 01/03/2008 1:59:43 AM PST by CzarNicky (The problem with bad ideas is that they seemed like good ideas at the time.)
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To: DogByte6RER

I predict they’ll soon be selling the pooped-cubes to Orange County, which will recycle them for drinking water.


44 posted on 01/03/2008 2:21:29 AM PST by Cringing Negativism Network (Liberalism: "Left, right left ... KUMBAYA! Left, right left ... KUMBAYA!")
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To: Candor7
Japans major source of protien seems to me minke whales off the antarctic coast these days!

45 posted on 01/03/2008 2:34:02 AM PST by cavador (LOL from the other side of the room!)
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To: DogByte6RER
So the robot carries the stacks of ice blocks to wherever you want to dump them? This is all fine and good as long as you have an extra yard or a huge refrigerated warehouse. But the average homeowner will not have space to store hundreds of these blocks per winter month. Snow is about 30% the density of ice, so every time you clear your driveway there will be several dozen of these blocks. Unlike a snow blower, which scatters the snow onto the lawn, you can't just toss slabs of ice onto the lawn for someone to trip over. And keeping the blocks frozen until summer would require more electicity than air conditioning would.

But the idea of a Roomba-like snowbot is a good one.

46 posted on 01/03/2008 2:38:29 AM PST by giotto
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To: giotto
Unlike a snow blower, which scatters the snow onto the lawn, you can't just toss slabs of ice onto the lawn for someone to trip over.

No, you stack 'em like firewood -- in a pile out of the way.

47 posted on 01/03/2008 2:47:07 AM PST by FreedomCalls (Texas: "We close at five.")
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To: DogByte6RER
Godzilla's more effective!


48 posted on 01/03/2008 3:28:05 AM PST by Cvengr (Every believer is a grenade. Arrogance is the grenade pin. Pull the pin and fragment your life.)
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To: ReignOfError

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.


49 posted on 01/03/2008 3:29:22 AM PST by Edward Watson (Fanatics with guns beat liberals with ideas)
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To: DogByte6RER

What is with this Japanese fixation on pooping? (Anybody here besides me aware of the darker side of their adult entertainment?)


50 posted on 01/03/2008 3:53:02 AM PST by CalvaryJohn (What is keeping that damned asteroid?)
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To: giotto
Snow is about 30% the density of ice

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.

51 posted on 01/03/2008 4:22:44 AM PST by thackney (life is fragile, handle with prayer)
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To: Edward Watson
In ten years time, we’ll see astonishing accomplishments.

I just want my R2 unit. That would be the ultimate -- like a pet who can fix your car.

52 posted on 01/03/2008 8:30:04 AM PST by ReignOfError
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To: ReignOfError
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!!"

53 posted on 01/03/2008 9:11:34 AM PST by China Clipper (My favorite animal is whatever is on my plate at that time)
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To: China Clipper
"I'll give you three quatlooms for that one!!"

"How about the other one? No, no. The blue one."

54 posted on 01/03/2008 10:24:27 AM PST by ReignOfError
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To: thackney
Freshly fallen snow is typically 10% or less the density of ice

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.

55 posted on 01/03/2008 10:48:02 AM PST by ReignOfError
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To: ReignOfError

In Anchorage, some of the piles of snow from road and parking lot removal are still around by late July.


56 posted on 01/03/2008 10:51:11 AM PST by thackney (life is fragile, handle with prayer)
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To: thackney
Freshly fallen snow is typically 10% or less the density of ice.

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.

57 posted on 01/03/2008 11:58:00 AM PST by giotto
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To: FreedomCalls
No, you stack 'em like firewood -- in a pile out of the way.

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.

58 posted on 01/03/2008 12:07:57 PM PST by giotto
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To: giotto
Maybe you can stack dozens of 50 lb. blocks of ice, but that's not something I could do,

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.

59 posted on 01/03/2008 12:49:31 PM PST by FreedomCalls (Texas: "We close at five.")
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To: FreedomCalls
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.

60 posted on 01/03/2008 1:15:12 PM PST by thackney (life is fragile, handle with prayer)
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