Today’s a nice day to be out on the water in a lot of places. Here’s an idea that could make those nice days at sea even nicer. Autonomous robot boats!
It’s a research project from MIT and the Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions based IN Amsterdam, which is about one-fourth water.
Over time, the ro-boats have learned to row themselves gently down the stream, backwards as well as forwards – and to connect to each other autonomously.
The goal is to give the robots a wide range of functionality – they could sense if there’s trash in the water, for example, and then organize themselves to clean it up. If the nearby walkways and bridges are too congested, they could assemble themselves into _new_ footbridges. Or if the city needs extra space for an event or a market, they could turn into a floating platform – all connected, all on their own.
The scientists say this same kind of functionality could be useful off the water, too – imagine refueling robots for airplanes or even spacecraft. Or robots that recharge each other in your house.
As for the ro-boats, they’re still plugging along and learning new skills – maybe someday they can even generate new playlists of yacht rock.
Here’s a story about the weather handing you lemons and making musical lemonade: there was heavy, heavy rain over the weekend in and around Guadalajara, Mexico.
The rain was so heavy that at the Plaza Patria shopping mall in the neighboring city of Zapopan, the water started coming through the roof, and making a big pool in the middle of the floor.
The musicians who were playing in the mall’s open area knew just what to do when the saw the water rushing in: they started playing “My Heart Will Go On,” the theme song from the movie “Titanic.”
Autonomous boats can target and latch onto each other (MIT)
As heavy rain floods shopping center, musicians play Titanic theme (Mexico News Daily)
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