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Vehicle for Cockroaches
William Robinson wrote to mention an entertaining Wired news article about vehicle meant for cockroaches. From the article: "Hertz has constructed a three-wheeled robotic vehicle that lets a Madagascan hissing cockroach navigate a room while perched atop a ping-pong ball. The ball works like a computer mouse's track ball. Where the roach moves on the ball, the vehicle moves in the room.
Sensors on the bot can tell when it's going to hit something. It also has a semi-circle of LED lights facing the roach, so when it's about to hit an obstacle an LED will shine on the creature from the direction of the barrier, hopefully causing it to run in the other direction."
Oh wow! This is just like the one reported by G4TV/TechTV, Gizmodo, Engadget, every other blog and website and news outlet AND AND SLASHDOT (Cockroach-Controlled Robot)... SIX WEEKS AGO.
Way to stay on top of things, Wired and Slashdot!
Submitter... Editor... is it that fucking hard to punch the word "roach" into the search field before posting? I mean, the duplicate article is the FIRST FUCKING RESULT.
Cockroaches and dupes.
Cockroach-Controlled Robot
Am I the only guy who read the blurb and couldn't help but blurt out: "What the fuck is Hertz doing working on a rent-a-ping-pong-ball...for roaches?!"
It was like living in a Ziggy strip, I swear to God.
...Innovation is slowing down. HA! Take that Jonathan Huebner!
first post?
Veritas patesco per quaestio questio. Truth is revealed through questions.
If you are going to duplicate articles, duplicate articles, about, say, finding water on the moon, or Debian releasing a stable distro, or, people find a cure for cancer, or SCO finally going belly up.
Why subject us to the thought of ROBOTICALLY AMPLIFIED COCKROACHES twice? Or is this just for everyone whose mind blanked this out the first time?
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
While I definately have to geek a little on this and applaud the work of people to create micro vehicles... I have to wonder the usefulness of cockroaches... I mean, isn't there enough things to research - without having to break out the need for transportation for house vermin?
But from the purely technical aspects of it - it's amazing... a trackball driven vehicle, designed for cockroaches. A for creativity.... C- for relativity...
They're gonna be the ones surviving the nuclear wars anyway, so might as well teach them how to use the technology while we can.
*DrugCheese rants*
What happens when this new cockroach vehicle becomes more popular? What if I find cockroach hummers and cockroach minivans? And, by any chance, could these be modified hotwheels cars? I am afraid this will make the job of exterminators much harder.
Powered by caffeine and sugar; BSD
Roach Coach.
If they can just get them to use cellphones while they drive it might be a great way to wipe out cockroaches. Darwin would be proud.
Well, I for one welcome our newly mobilized Cockroach overlords
Next thing you know, we'll be giving squad cars to the spiders to keep those speed demon roaches in check...
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
Animals do learn, and these are ones that are already remarkably durable. Is anyone doing this experiment asking whether this is a good idea?
I'm actually relative serious when I say: I hope they're disposing of the test subjects afterward and not sending them back to the hive to say: "I figured out the rosetta stone to their technology. Now we'll have no trouble taking over."
I recently re-watched the original Jurassic Park and was properly impacted by someone's remark at some point that they'd be safe from the Raptors untilt hey figured out how to turn a doorknob. It was an excellent point about intelligent creatures. I'm actually not worried a bug is going to drive a car, but I do worry that Einstein's remark "a mind one stretched by a new idea never regains its original shape" might have some applicability here if we make a regular practice of this kind of thing.
We don't need to be artificially creating triggers that put roaches into a more advanced intellectual state ahead of their own natural evolution.
Star Trek teaches us the Prime Directive, which says approximately: don't interfere with the evolution of lower life forms because they may not have the wisdom to use their newfound knowledge for the betterment of mankind. I say we follow that lead in this case.
Kent M Pitman
Philosopher, Technologist, Writer
1. Insert generic and superfluous statement regarding dislike of dupe'd articles
2. Make obvious reference to previous story
3. Welcome our newly mobile cockroach overlords
4. ????
5. Profit!
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
... La Cucaracha for the horn?
Is a way to give editors bad karma...
I have freaks! I did something right...
I live in Japan. My wife's car beeps when you put it into reverse. Not outside the car, mind you, where it might warn a luckless pedestrian (tm). INSIDE THE CAR ONLY. Perhaps the roach's semi-sircle of LEDs could be added to my wif's car, and we could give the roach a backing beeper.
We'll submit it to the IEEE then post on
Don't trust anyone under thirty.
Good luck debugging this thing!
Instead of brains, the roaches have ganglia: clumps of nerve cells on various parts of their bodies.
...
"It was kind of a no-brainer that (Hertz's bot) would be a piece we would include..."
Zing!
This is a great step forward in re-abilitating the handicapped cockroach and enabling him to regain his place as a useful, contributing member of society!
Non tam praeclarum est scire Latine, quam turpe nescire
-- Cicero
This reminds me a little bit of the pigeon guided missile, a project that the noted behaviorist B.F. Skinner worked on during World War II.
e
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigeon_guided_missil
During World War 2, Project Pigeon was American behaviourist B. F. Skinner's attempt to develop a pigeon-guided missile.
The control system involved a lens at the front of the missile projecting an image of the target to a screen inside, while a pigeon trained (by operant conditioning) to recognise the target pecked at it. As long as the pecks remained in the center of the screen, the missile would fly straight, but pecks off-center would cause the screen to tilt, which would then, via a connection to the missile's flight controls, cause the missile to change course.
Although skeptical of the idea, the National Defense Research Committee nevertheless contributed $25,000 to the research. However, Skinner's plans to use pigeons in Pelican missiles was apparently too radical for the military establishment; although he had some success with the training, he could not get his idea taken seriously.
First of all, nothing said that the ball moves 1 cm and the roach moves 1 m. It says that the roach walks and the vehicle moves. That's sorta like me walking on top of a log and rolling down the street. Sure, I'm rolling along the street, but I'm still expending just as much energy to do so. Also, what airline are you flying that makes you walk to power the plane?