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Robocones
Anonymous Meoward writes "Researchers at the University of Nebraska - Lincoln have come up with robotic traffic barrels ('bollards', for our British readers) that can be repositioned by remote control, thus minimizing a road worker's time in harm's way. Apparently, the barrels can be grouped and positioned by an autonomous 'shepherd' unit, that is also smart enough to also remove an errant barrel from its herd. The barrels themselves are about as intelligent as.. well, orange barrels. Okay, let's cue the more obvious jokes..." Reader zombieflesheater submitted this previous attempt to mobilize road furniture.
I for one welcome our new robo-bollard overlords.
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
Personally, I'd be more interested in seeing the development of flocking road cones. But that's just me :)
-pararox-
vicious Gangs of "Keep Left" signs!
Will there be a requirement for half the barrels to be standing around doing nothing, as per union rules?
If they're deployed in France, how long until they go on strike?
Have they worked out a way to have one cone doing its job while 5 other cones gather around and watch?
NetInfo connection failed for server 127.0.0.1/local
"History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme." Mark Twain
How long until a bunch of bored slash-nerds g out and round up enough cones to spell PENIS on the highway?
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
I can just see it now... a bunch of highly intoxicated students riding around on these and getting themsleves arrested. Sounds like fun!
"Sir, is that your bollard?"
"Um... no shir"
"Are you a student?"
"Yesh shir"
"*sigh* Put it back will you?"
"OK shir, thanksh you"
(I had carried the thing for 3 miles by this point)
Combine both. Self healing traffic cone array with a serious deterrant against not obeying the lane closure signs.
What will happen when the drivers hit the cones? Will they strike back? I can just see having to avoid kamakaze attack cones.
Slashdot, home of supporters of free software, free music, and free speech.Except for Moderators that disagree with you.
Why use robots when TOYS did it so well ?
Trolling using another account since 2005.
The obvious next step now will be for college students to steal them and make robotic traffic cone dorm tables.
('bollards', for our British readers)
The correct terminology is 'bollocks'. Also given the nature of the text it would be more correctly expressed using 'to' rather than 'for'. Also, as the US language is obviously derivitive of true english this terminology should also be valid in the US.
So thats is...
"Bollocks to our British readers"
to which the clear and obvious response is..
"Bollocks to you too..."
Steal a few of these, set them up in the street in front of my apartment to save my parking spot. When my car approaches, a RF sensor will tell the cones to part to allow my car to slide into the spot. Fantastic!
-- If god wanted me to have a sig, he'd have given me a sense of humor.
Hi. I'm Troy McClure. You might remember me from such highway robot movies as "Mad Max 6: The Road Is the Warrior" and "Coneroads" co-starring Dan Aykroyd.
and this is my first attempt at rude slashdot responses:
YOU FAIL IT
Imagine a Beowulf cluster of those!
Officer, I swear those cones jumped right out in front of me!
They are known by this name in northern Minnesota, too. In parts of the country where deer hunting is a real big deal, there were problems with witches being shot out of the sky by accident during Halloween, which occurs during bow-hunting season. The state government forced all witches to wear bright hunter's-orange hats.
The witches got angry about this, just like the Amish who objected to having orange triangles on their buggies. In fact, in 1999, one angry witch known to most as "Bemidji Bertha" passed a curse on St. Paul. It is believed that the election of Jesse Ventura was a fulfillment of the curse.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
It is nice to see that tax payer money can go to replacing endless cones that are used for driving target practice. Maybe they can flip them over and have them deliver ice cream on real hot days to all the workers sitting beside the road.
There is no exageration about the deadliness of hightway work site accidents. Open and closing lanes is very dangerous - there is a small number of motorists who think that flaggers are there just to annoy them.
Some observations from a former flagger.
Every female with a drooling brat in school believes that nothing should stop her from picking up little Damien and taking him home to torture the new cat.
A coworker pointed out that our signs have words on them. This confuses motorists.
Most localities seem to have a tax on turn signal usage. Therefore, most motorists never use them. If they do use them, they are going straight anyway.
Elderly people have tunnel vision. They will never see the flagger at the side of the road.
From personal observation: An 80,000 lb haulers rig will stop a motorist who runs past a flagger station. So will any large yellow machine with CAT printed on its side.
In soviet russia jokes suck at you!
I can imagine the stories in Slashdot in a few years after someone breaks the security on these babies...
"We uploaded a modified Linux kernel to the bollards over their radio link..."
"With this patch, you can use any construction site as a Wifi access point..."
"This patch makes the bollards engage in autonomous 'wild dog' car-chasing behaviour..."
Voice Over: And on the road too, vicious gangs of traffic control barrels.
Film: Two vicious traffic control barrels with little legs attack a vicar.
Colonel: (coming up and stopping them) Right, right, stop it! This thread's got silly. Started off with a nice little idea about automated road barrels and fatality statistics, but now it's got silly. The spelling is atrocious for a thread too. And these robot topic icons are pretty badly made as well. And those aren't proper English bollards anyway!
University of Nebraska graduate students reported that running up stairs was an effective way to get away from the defective traffic barrels, which chased after the students yelling "EXTERMINATE!! EXTERMINATE!" even though they original design did not call for speakers or any noise making capability in the robots.
How about a Beowulf cluster of these?
In Russia, bollards reposition YOU!
This news makes it obvious that *BSD is dead.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
and when will we get chased by gangs of "keep left" signs?
---
awake and alert!
-Penguin Mints
Then there will be many more issues due to cones that start moving around the road, seemingly independantly of the road crews control.
:D
We'll see cones lined up across all lanes of traffic and cones that just randomly start moving.
That won't cause too many problems, now will it...
use your turn signal! you people act like it's divulging information to the enemy
Definitely not an epidemic, though it appears that the workers themselves cause about half of the accidents.
Of course. Have you ever spent much time with construction workers? Lets just say that most of them do not hold degrees in Rocketology.
This looks like the next "helicopter bowling" waiting to happen. Not a good idea.
Penalties for killing a road worker??? What's the world coming to! This along with the laws banning hunting from motor vehicles is going to ruin construction hunting season for me.
Executive Summary:
However, data is not given to distinguish between the possibilities:
Construction Zone Safety Solutions Are Obvious:
Thus, government clerks and supervisors should do construction work in automobiles. Non-workers are less dangerous than workers, thus the automobiles should be those of passerby. Non-workers on foot are not a problem. As eliminating backing vehicles removes 51% of the problem, workers should get in to vehicles of passerby, drive those vehicles forward while completing tasks, then return the vehicle to the non-worker who has walked through construction zone.
So traffic barrels should be yellow, with CAT printed on the side, and with an 80,000 lb weight inside. Did you put that in the suggestion box?
Has anyone else noticed that the abbreviation of assistant professor is "Ass Prof" on the BBC website?
30 people were killed today in a motorway pile-up caused by a software bug in a robotic bollard. Confused by a passing car playing gangsta-rap music the robot had begun dancing accross 3 lanes of traffic, ending up attached to the front of a mini-van.
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Does anyone find this troubling that anyone with the right access could shut down all of america's roadways in a couple minutes?
This means when the computers finally take over, they can herd us un-knowingly into easy to bomb spots, or shut down the evacuation with well placed road cones!!!!
Daleks!!!
That's right I'm gonna get me some of these, paint em black, slap a plunger on each one, dress the 'shepherd' unit up as Davro's, get the mad crazy long scarf out, take a hit of acid, and I'm in my own personal Dr. Who episode baby!!!