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Scuba-Doo Underwater Scooter
hawado writes "Just when you thought it was safe to go in the water, 'Fans of the Segway scooter now have a way to look just as silly traveling underwater as they do on land thanks to the efforts of an inventive Australian company.' 'The Scuba-Doo comes with everything you would want in a submerged Segway.' I just don't know what to say, but I am sure all you /.rs will have some really great comments. The company's web site can be found here."
Also, I worry about the company's legitimacy, have you been to their website. That is the worst photoshop work I have ever seen. Plus, they repeat what is on the front page on all of the their pages. Which, if you were counting, for individuals like myself, is only 3 pages total. I WANT MORE INFORMATION
-- johntracy.com, because everybody else is wrong.
I don't like the way you start to drown as soon as you fall off. :-)
Sounds like a lot of fun....
Just wait till someone swaps the engine in it....
I wonder how fast that can go and still be "safe".
Underwater bike races! whee.
I've ridden on very similar underwater skooters like this years ago. They've got these in just about any snorkel/scuba sites that are primarily tourist areas. Hawaii, Micronesia, Polynesia, the Caribbean, etc. all have tourist excursion packages that include riding these things.
Next week will we be hearing about snuba?
I have been pwned because my
... you're all free to say "Scuba-Doo, where are you?"
Well, this costs as much as some new cheaper cars. It also, arguably, looks cooler than the Segway and travels underwater without the usual scuba gear / complicated breathing apparatuses. if i was rich, bored and wanted to have underwater paintball fights / play submarine bumper-tag, i'd buy one!
[sean connery] Sho Q, what do you have for me thish time? [/connery]
a) someone runs their battery dead and drowns. b) someone runs into something, breaks the seal on the helmet and drowns. c) someone takes it to a depth at which the glass bursts under the pressure and drowns. d) someone gets run into by a frigate,yacht or even a jetski because they are too close to the surface, runs out of battery power whilst they are unconcious and drowns... I just don't see the fun in drowning...
ok.. so heads you lose tails I win. right?
I have seen pictures of this elsewhere, I believe in a magazine. So I get the feeling that they do indeed exist, and the company is legitimate.
However, that does not make them any less stupid...
After seeing that picture, I sure want to go buy the product. She just looks so happy, as if she'll suffocate with joy riding this thing.
Until now, Snorks had to swim or ride seahorses to get from point A to point B. The underwater Segway will fill the niche in-between, and ultimately result in Snork cities being completely built around this wonderous new technology.
Oh yeah, I remember this. This was in the episode with the underwater ghost dude, right?
Australia, eh? Swim in the wrong place with this "Scuba-Doo" and a shark'll turn you into a nice "Scuba-Snack".
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
You're right. What would Hanna-Barbera, the owner of the SCOOBY-DOO trademark, have to say about this? Under the Trademark Dilution Act and foreign counterparts, the rule about separation of fields of use don't apply to trademarks as famous as SCOOBY-DOO(R).
With this thing, you're limited in your visibility; I'd be surprised if you could turn it to look straight down. Also a bit difficult to turn around in a hurry to look at a school of fish (or a shark, or a mantray, or similar) that's just swum behind you.
Thanks, but no thanks. If it works for you, great. It doesn't for me.
As a trained diver I can evaluate the personal risks involved in my sport and decide wether or not to engage in it. I think that this device will encourage untrained people to do things which can end up with them being DEAD or crippled.
It is too easy to get your eardrums blown in or your lungs burst, or drown unless you've had the appropriate training.
There are already DPV's (Piver Propulsion Vehicles) on the market for those who dont want to fin their way around the bottom. I think that this product will cause plenty of problems.
If you ever lose it... you just have to yell out the following command to make it come to surface:
"Scuba-scuba-doo, where are you?"
Look. All someone's done is taken the front of a Stormtrooper mask, cut some chunks out of the sides, painted it yellow, and stuck in an incredibly photoshopped woman.
:)
I mean, her arms appear to be coming from her breasts, if her head's attached to her body like that then she's got incredibly bad scoliosis, and the bottom half of her bikini appears to have been drawn onto her body by an epileptic kid using a pre-alpha version of MS Paint whilst in the middle of a tonic seizure.
Her face also appears to be, for reasons unknown, forced against the front of the plexiglass screen with some incredible force.
Clearly some huge conspiracy
I've done it - snuba is more fun, but this can be less intimidating for inexperienced people.
"Woa johnny! Look at the size of that thing- you must got yourself a big yellow whaleshark! Hang on there while I give the ole engine some juice to tire the bugger out."
these things have been around for a while, and I think they are a bad idea. I am a current SCUBA instructor as well as a pretty experienced cave and technical diver. There are so many limitations to this thing that makes it completely impractical. Transport is one issue in terms of getting it into and out of the water.
for one thing, inexperienced pilot will have this hard bodied device with which to crash into delicate coral. this will have to be used in a body of water with typically little current, else it become quite easy to lose the group.
It cannot go deep for long since it is still open to ambient pressure, so decompression comes into play as well as gas supply. For every 33 feet (10m) one descends, the pressure increases by one atmosphere. If that tank were to last the diver 60 minutes on the surface, then at 33 feet it would last only 30 minutes, at 60 feet it would be 20 minutes, and so forth.
It might be ok for a few shallow water, shore-based resorts that can charge the units at the dock. Even a fairly cheap diver scooter will be just around 800-1200, and those can only go to about 100-150 feet if you're lucky. In order to go more deep, you have to get more specialized units (www.gavinscooters.com) that can handle the pressure (I've taken mine to 350) and has the battery burn time. Even those units only cost ~$3500. These units are simply torpedo looking devices that tow the diver. The biggest advantage is that it reduces the workload for the diver, thus dropping air consumption and helping one cover more ground.
This device has no similarities other than someone trying to compare two unlike things with a vague attempt at seeming technologically advanced.
Cave, wreck, and deep diver.
and I'd have made a million from it if not for you meddling kids..I mean /.'ers finding all these flaws.
If the bad Photoshop work and the poor website wasn't enough to set your fraud alarms off, some basic physics can be used to show that this vehicle is completely unsafe if it were to really exist. Being a certified diver myself, perhaps a bit of information can make my point.
Have you ever sank yourself down to the bottom of the deep end of the pool? Odds are you felt some discomfort in your sinuses. This is because of the increased pressure exerted on your body at depth. Remember the ideal gas law? PV = nRT? Rearrange that to show V is proportional to 1/P. Thus, for a fixed number of molecules of gas, increasing the pressure (due to the water column above you) will reduce the volume that gas occupies. That is, the air in your sinuses is occupying less volume, causing what divers refer to as a 'squeeze.'
Note that the squeeze problem is precisely why you can't use regular swimming goggles when scuba diving; the volume contraction sucks on your eyes.
The way divers fix the 'squeeze' problem is by equalization -- adding more gas molecules into the space that the squeeze is happening in. This is accomplished by either pinching the nose and blowing into it. However, the image of the scooter shows that the hands are sealed away from the head! Any passenger will quickly become uncomfortable when unable to equalize -- certainly before the 10m depth floor.
I also have doubts about buoyancy control of the device.
At least the nitrogen accumulation would not be sufficient at 10m to warrant decompression stops. It's too bad that this device isn't real... ;)
I once took a diving course, as have others who are reading this. There are a number of things to learn regarding safety. This Scuba-Doo machine obviously tries to handle all that worry for you. However I don't believe an unknowledgable person should be sent underwater just for recreational purpose, even if a machine *may* handle the main safety features automatically. The person will be better off if they learn about their underwater environment (the fundamentals) before attempting to enter it in any way, and how to react properly in certain situations. Save the $14,000 and instead spend a few hundred bucks on a diving course which will provide you with much more enjoyment and hands down give you a safer experience (by way of knowledge).
... and even then it looks like a good reef-destroyer.
This machine is impractical (does not remotely resemble classic diving) because you can only use it in a very basic environment
Second when you dive to a depth of 30 to 60 feet or so you can only stay down safely a bit less than an hour or you risk getting the bends (nitrogen saturation of your blood coming out in gass form in your joints and nerves). So the time limit is just fine.
Third you dont have to be certified to use this. fourth, its failsafe in many ways that scuba is not. The number one danger in scuba is forgetting to exhale when ascending (descending is not dangerous). If you forget to exhale on ascent from 60 feet then when you get to the surface you have a few atmospheres of air in your lungs and they literally explode inside of your body. Since ther is a bubble of air around your head there is no time when you would feel like holding your breath. This machine automatically passively equalizes the air pressure for you as you ascend (your nose is also exposed too).
Likewise there is no way to suddenly find the tank is empty. when the tank goes empty you still have a head bubbles worth of air left
One of the little known facts about scuba diving is that if you run out of air then if stay calm you always have enough air in your lungs to swim to the surface from any depth. The reason is that as you go deeper you also have more air in your lungs. You only have to remember to exhale on the way up to let off the excess air pressure.
this thing is attached to a bouy so you cant sink it or goo to deep go into a cave. And you have a lifeline to the surface if you are disoriented. When you get to the surface you have floatation.
A final danger in scuba is too rapid of an ascent. when you try to go up your boyancy device will run away from you: as it expands you rise faster leading to further expansion and pretty soon you are apolaris missile broaching the surface as your lungs go "pop". On the scooter it controls this for you.
On the other hand the joy of scuba diving is the freedom of 3-D orientation. Drift in a current head down. try to use as little effort as possible (e.g dont swim up but instead just control your breathing to control your veritical position). look behind you look all around. This sort of sucks the life out of the sport.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
And believe me in surging seas and murky conditions puking is something you find neccessary. Its not a fun thought.
but with the bubble, no problemo. Nasty yes. but no though process required and no instant death if you screw up.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
It's not a problem because, like pilots, you never plan on using all your air/fuel. You always have a reserve- most divers, for example, start surfacing(depending upon how deep they are) when they hit anywhere from 1500 to 500 psi(used to be 500 psi, everyone's encouraging a much larger margin). The divemaster would take this into account when timing a dive, for example.
It's also not a problem, because as you use up the air, the tank becomes lighter and the whole thing(including you) becomes more buoyant, not less. The weight difference between a tank at 3000+ PSI and 500 PSI is quite significant in terms of buoyancy control, and is why you need to be slightly negative when you first get in the water if you're diving. If you're not, you're going to run a rather serious risk of uncontrolled ascent towards the end of your dive. It's one of the many situations that can lead to decompression sickness.
It would not surprise me in the slightest if the unit was designed to be slightly positively buoyant at all times, so that if it stops moving forward, it slowly floats to the surface. That could be used in conjunction with a low-pressure switch to shut off the unit if the air pressure gets too low.
Oh, and even if the thing did start sinking, guess what? You get out, blow bubbles and kick to the surface; it's not like you're in a sub that's gonna implode. By the way, blowing bubbles or exhaling is very important- if you don't, you're going to have a punctured lung. At the depths this thing is designed for, decompression sickness most likely won't be a problem.
The only real problems I see are a)serious potential for reef damage(it's bad enough with divers whacking things with their flippers, this thing crashing into a reef would be devastating) and b)improper training(SCUBA is very safe, but only when you know what you're doing. When you don't know what you're doing, it becomes very dangerous, which is why you can't rent equipment(or even buy it, from some shops, unless they know you're a student) without proof of certification or enrollment in a class.
Please help metamoderate.
Have you even seen the damage done by a cruise ship dragging anchor across the ocean floor?
Have you even seen a 3000+ year old reef destroyed by some offcourse barge?
Do you know that most of the reefs at popular dive destinations are DYING?
The last thing we need are a bunch of inexperienced divers crashing these underwater vehicles into table corals, soft corals, and otherwise speeding up the demise of our fragile coral reefs.
Think I'm exaggeratting?
Freighter damager 1200ftX200ft swath of Florida reef
60% of great barrier reef hit by bleaching
Great barrier reef 50 years from death
Sewage killing Tobaggo's reef
Bottom trawling fishing destroys large portions of deep water coral reefs never explored
Anyone else get the feeling, all the snorkelers and scuba folk will be swimming along, enjoying the reefs when a fleet of these bloody "SUVs of the sea" show up and start pummeling the reefs and freestyle divers?
These look exactly like Tiki BOBs. I'm guessing it's the same company and everything, they're just hopping on the segway bandwagon. Didn't look around a lot, but here's a link or two:l
http://www.cdnn.info/industry/i031220/i031220.htm
http://www.aquatica-dive.com/actibob_us.htm
It sounds like this scubadoo is limited, like the tiki bob, to only a few meters of depth.
J
I worked (as a certified scuba instructor) for an operation that ran these same underwater scooters for hire. The scooters that we ran were tethered to a maximum depth of 8 feet.
A lot of people right off the cruise ship that had never seen the ocean had a great time doing it. As a scuba diver, I got in and wanted to get out.
It's great if you've never been salt water wet, otherwise, snorkeling or scuba beats it anytime.
Unfortunately it took my girlfriend giving me this in order for me to fulfil my thought...
"a comparative test drive between an under-water propeller driven, blue and yellow one-person SubBug, and a giant manta ray." - Douglas Adams, Salmon of Doubt, "Riding The Rays." Douglas gets a free trip to Australia to write about it. Conclusion - "Your manta ray is going to be a lot faster and more manoevrable, and you don't need to change its tank every twenty minutes. But the big points that the Sub Bug wins are for the fact that you can actually get on it."
Feed my eyes...
When I first saw the headline I thought, "WTF Scooby Do Underwear? Segway?" I had this vision of people riding around wearing it on their Segways...
http://www.gizmo.com.au/pics/1967_03.jpg
They may claim they had Scooby-Doo in mind when naming this, but unless they are actually a division of Bombardier (which it doesn't appear they are), they might expect a lawsuit from them, do to the similarity to products like these and these
Can anyone tell me how to set my sig on Slashdot?
There's nothing like strapping yourself to an electrical torpedo from the crotch...
As a certified (PADI Advanced) diver, I will say your post is filled with distorted facts, if not downright factual errors. I pray for your safety when you dive and hope you are not my dive buddy!
For example:
---when you dive to a depth of 30 to 60 feet or so you can only stay down safely a bit less than an hour or you risk getting the bend
Incorrect.
Bends, more correctly known as decompression sickness, is caused by rapid decompression i.e. ascending too quickly. It is not caused by how long you were underwater as you had claimed.
Bends can be induced even if you are under water, say 60 ft, for one single minute and then shot up too quickly. This is why the recommend ascent rate is less than 1 ft per minute followed by one or more safety stops at 15 ft.
---its failsafe in many ways that scuba is not.
I would disagree with you again. Scuba is actually one of the safest sports out there because 1) it requires its users to be trained and certified and 2) and because of the redundancy built-in.
Every diver has a primary regulator (the thing you suck air from) and a secondary regulator just in case if the primary fails. Even if both fails, many diver carries a pony bottle that gives one just enough air to reach surface. In the case if that fails or if you do not have a pony bottle, you can always use your dive buddy's secondary regulator. What if your buddy's secondary reg also fails? You can either share the primary regulator with your buddy or, as you mentioned, ascent without air while breathing out the remaining air in your lung.
So, is a scuba diver, who is by definition certified, safer than ScubaDoo user? I think so.
---Likewise there is no way to suddenly find the tank is empty. when the tank goes empty you still have a head bubbles worth of air left
Not true either. Even if you are tank is empty and you had to ascend rapidly (forgetting for a second that you should be diving with a buddy), it is recommended to keep your regulator in your mouth because the remaining little air in your tank will expand as well and give you one last breath. In a sense, this is not too different from the Scubadoo's head of air bubble.
Lastly, while a pulmonary barotrauma (burst lung) is possible, it is extremely rare.
Stop scaring the Slashdot non-divers!