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A Robot That Runs On A Sugar High

Posted by timothy on from the add-caffeine-and-chocolate dept.

Digitalia writes: "Using a biological soup that mimics our stomachs, the gastrobot is the first commercial robot that "feeds" on organic matter to get its energy. Chew Chew, as it is called, takes a cube of sugar and turns it into enough energy to roll around for 15 minutes. I particularly enjoyed the creator's explanation as to why his bots aren't carnivores. Check the article out here." 15 minutes seems a pretty good run for a sugar-cube, but hasn't anyone explained the carbohydrates theory to this robot?

3 of 148 comments (clear)

  1. now by British · · Score: 4

    Is there a way it could eat things it could find in a land fill?

  2. I know some of those by HongPong · · Score: 5

    Yah, I've encountered some of those... They're called programmers.

    --
    --hongpong.com
  3. Perpetual possibilities by SClitheroe · · Score: 5

    The really interesting aspect of this experiment is that the guy managed to generate electrical power from simple bacteria.

    Imagine a machine with a miniaturized, balanced eco-system on board, where the production of algae or some other easily grown form of life provided enery to bacteria or some other life form, which in turn provided waste products that fostered algae growth.

    They would be low powered machines (akin, I would think, to sloths), but given the exponential growth of new technology these days, I bet somebody could come up with a fairly efficient machine.