How Recycling Robots Could Help Us Clean the Planet

How Recycling Robots Could Help Us Clean the Planet: "Imagine a future where waste-collecting robots will move through air, land, and water, cleaning our environment"

Nomadic Plant Cleans, Feeds

Nomadic Plant Cleans, Feeds: "



The Nomadic Plant was designed by Gilberto Esparza to seek out polluted water, clean it up and feed it needed nutrients. Powered by microbial energy, the art project also feeds itself, proving that robots will save the planet by symbiosis. The roboplant is on display at Plantas Nomadas Gijón, Spain through June 7. Seeing it makes us want to rescreen 'Silent Running', a nifty 90's flick with Bruce Dern, a huge garden and some of the cutest robot tenders that ever hit filmdom.


Via Greenpacks


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SCOOBA INTERNALS

Found this article surfing on the internets. The article shows iRobot's Scooba internals and explains how it works. The writer explains some of the negative points of Scooba, but it seems that this Scooba version is old. Here there are some Scooba nude photos.

CIRCUIT BOARD
THE WHEEL
THE PUMP

THE FAN

informit.com

SPECIMINDER

SpeciMinder is a commercial Hospital Delivery Robot by CCS Robotics. Description from the webpage:

Whether within a large lab area or between floors, the RA-418 SpeciMinder™ can autonomously navigate and securely carry specimens throughout a healthcare facility.
No modification to the facility is necessary for the SpeciMinder™ to reach its destination (this is NOT an old-fashioned line follower). Featuring ARCSinside™ from MobileRobots, the RA-418 uses a self-created map of the building and simple user interaction to routinely travel between the emergency room and the lab. Manual calling will bring the autonomous mobile platform to your test station as well as dispatch it to the destination. Controlled access to the payload compartment ensures accountability and traceability of samples. Tamper proof and water tight carrier prevents biohazards.

Video showing the robot in action:

via Robot Gossip

CONTOUR CRAFTING ROBOT

The house building robot is the work of Behrokh Khoshnevis from the University of Southern California. Seeing the devastation of the earthquake that destroyed the city of Bam, in his native Iran, inspired Behrokh Khoshnevis to crate a technology to allow people to build stable homes in a rapid and economical manner.

The Contour Crafter robot is like a 3D printer. The design is similar to a gantry crane with a computer guided nozzle and arm. They place cement and manipulate different house materials, from water and electrical pipes to windows and doors crosspieces. Guided by a structural design program, the robot will build the structure from the ground up, as robot deposits cement and additional material layer by layer.

Videos with different CG examples:

The University of Southern California professor’s Contour Crafting robot will see the first test. It’s scheduled to build a house in California within the next few months. The house will built in less than 24 hours out of only concrete and gypsum, and without the help of a single human hand.

Video of a real prototype:

As you can see the machine provides a new model for construction that drastically cuts building timelines, material, manpower, and most importantly, waste and carbon emissions.

via robots.engadget 1 & robots.engadget 2

via inhabitat 1 & inhabitat 2

YUKI-TARO

Yuki-taro is an environmentally-friendly autonomous snowplow robot. Yuki-taro measures 160 x 95 x 75 cm and weighs 400 kg. With the help of a GPS and a pair of video cameras, the self-guided robot seeks out snow and gobbles it up into its mouth. Yuki-taro compresses the snow into hard blocks measuring 60 x 30 x 15 cm, which Yuki-taro expels from its rear end. The blocks can then be stacked and stored until summer, when they can be used as an alternative source of refrigeration or cooling.

Developed by researchers from the Niigata Industrial Creation Organization, Research and Development, Inc., Niigata Institute of Technology, Yamagata University and the Industrial Research Institute of Niigata Prefecture. In 2006, Yuki-taro received a Good Design Award in the small-to-medium sized enterprise category.
Researchers continue to work on reducing Yuki-taro’s size, weight and cost, and they hope to make it commercially available in five years at a price of less than $8,300.

via Gizmodo:Robots & Pink Tentacle