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The Wasp Micro Air Vehicle
Victor Cheng writes "In developments that bring together a variety of technologies including robotics and digital imaging the Wasp Micro Air Vehicle is one of the Pentagon's latest tools currently in testing of the Nimitz Carrier Strike Group (although I'm thinking its not going to need a carrier to get this one up and flying). The 13 inch Wasp comes equipped with 2 video cameras, GPS and has a myriad of possible applications. Next time you hear something Buzzing around when you're at a family picnic you might think twice before swatting it could be an expensive action."
Swatting a 13-inch wasp is unlikely. Scream and run away, or possibly even cower and say "I for one welcome our giant robot wasp overlords"...
Browsing with +2 to insightful posts and a higher threshold makes the average post seen seem a lot more ingenious
Maybe they've made a special 4 foot long mini-nimitz to go with it? That way you could fit an entire carrier group in your garden pond. How cool would that be?
You have the wrong perspective. Slashdot stories are more like a fine Merlot than leftover potato chips. They don't produce stories with class like this anymore!
Do you like German cars?
"next time you hear something Buzzing around when you're at a family picnic"
If its a 13 inch wasp (just over a foot), then quite frankly if something that size starts buzzing around a family picnic I doubt it would be able to hide from you all that well, and secondly I doubt anyone would be stupid enough to attack a foot-long wasp with a rolled up newspaper or magazine.
If horror films have taught us nothing it's that when freakishly large mutant insects attack (TM) you just run and hope you aren't the extra with no name who's destined to die in the first 20 minutes.
*sigh* Journalists these days...
Hope it hasn't invited any of it's mates to the picnic.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
Someone please get Gordon Freeman on the phone
Connection closed by foreign host.
Walmart has one for $1.99 but it doesn't fly and doesn't take pictures. However, it does *look* like a wasp.
...richie - It is a good day to code.
Now if you were able to have a payload of say a water balloon or an M80 I could see its use in neighborhood warfare.
Aha, There's that extra comma that was missing from the original post. Been looking for it.
...but, all I can remember from your post is, " it's got to have a nice big pair on it. " *mind wandering, with visions of big pairs running through it..*
The reasons they build UAVs in the first place is because they can't bring agents into the area, because its still too hostile. I hardly think a family picnic is so 'hostile' as to require a UAV.
Clearly you've never been to one of my family picnics!
cyn, free software and *nix operating systems enthusiast.
The brave efforts of the past will never be repeated!
Then: "Torpedo Eight has been wiped out, sir!"
Now: "Torpedo Eight is stuck in a tree, sir!"
tone
tone
Imagine an autonomous beowolf cluster of these.
It would bring an entirely new level to the
quality of trap/skeet shotgun competition.
I, for one, can hardly wait...
" you might think twice before swatting it could be an expensive action."
A 13" White Anglo-Saxon Prodestant with two video cameras and a GPS device? I agree, you're just asking for trouble coming at that with a fly swatter.
"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance - it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel Boorstin