When hot weather comes this summer, some of us might be able to go back to the pool and cool off.
And a team in Germany has just come up with a way to help us stay safe while we do: it’s a robot lifeguard!
The device they’ve designed isn’t shaped like a human; it’s more like a metal bed or chair with floaties attached.
It has a system to scan the pool for the physical signs that a swimmer is in distress.
Then, the robot swims over to the person, secures them so they can’t slide off, brings them back above the surface of the water and over to the side of the pool so they can be treated.
And it does it quickly.
Seconds count when you’re helping someone in danger of drowning, after all.
The developers are still working out the design to make it faster and more effective.
But one thing that’s notable about the robot lifeguard: it doesn’t sit on a lifeguard chair.
It’s in a docking station on the floor of the swimming pool.
Not that robots really need to sit up on that tall chair and work on their tan.
Still, maybe now they can reboot “Baywatch” with an android version of David Hasselhoff.
Musical history was made today in 1969: the first song ever performed in outer space!
The crew of Apollo 9 sang “Happy Birthday To You” to NASA’s director of space operations, Christopher Kraft (though he was born in February so it was a belated birthday song).
They would go on to sing to another NASA worker, Charlotte Maltese, so “Happy Birthday To You” is also the second song ever sung in outer space.
(They didn’t get to “Space Oddity” on that mission, mostly because it hadn’t been released yet.)
New Robot Lifeguard Will Save People from Drowning (Interesting Engineering)
50 Years Ago: Apollo 9 Completes its Mission (NASA)
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Robot lifeguard photo via Fraunhofer IOSB-AST
