A Robot That Runs On A Sugar High 148
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?
I see the need for a mod... (Score:1)
Popular Science 12/00 (Score:2)
In that article it mentions that the creator has plans to build another robot that would be able to search out it's own food source.
Hsn't anyone explained the carbohydrates theory? (Score:1)
Old, Old, Old News. (Score:1)
now (Score:4)
Close Your Mouth While You Eat (Score:1)
Size (Score:1)
Twinkies (Score:3)
Oops... I just got an overflow error on my TI-89.
Old news (Score:1)
Orange Groves? (Score:1)
mmmm, donuts! (Score:1)
Re:Hsn't anyone explained the carbohydrates theory (Score:1)
I know some of those (Score:5)
Slugbot (Score:1)
Oops it was in December issue... (Score:1)
Saw this a long time ago (Score:2)
All the bot can do is roll around until its battery runs out, then you feed it more sugar. It sits there for a few hours charging on the sugar, then rolls some more.
All in all, not really much in the way of a threat, but a pretty neat idea. As for flesh-eating robots bent on human destruction taking over the earth one day, I seriously doubt it. That would require some pretty good intelligence, and I just don't know if we would ever come that close.
-
The IHA Forums [ihateapple.com]
Perpetual possibilities (Score:5)
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.
Mad Science (Score:1)
twinkie defense (Score:1)
This article doesn't have (Score:1)
In any event, the orange grove concept is a neat one but I wonder what "monitoring" needs to take place in an orange grove that a fixed sensor couldn't handle?
Re:Hsn't anyone explained the carbohydrates theory (Score:1)
Diet-bot (Score:3)
Eat all you want, have it get rid of a percentage of the sugars for you.
No shit (Score:1)
But what about after that? If you keep feeding it sugar, does it keep running? How long is the 'stomach' sustainable?
Hmmm, one problem:
What it runs on ... (Score:3)
I wonder on the energy efficiency of a system like this. I see that the original reporter in the story was not taking this too seriously, even though this does have some potential. Some details provided are interesting
Re:Orange Groves? (Score:2)
The lemon battery consumes its zinc electrode. You need lemons and metal.
Kind of paranoid about AI (Score:1)
Stop Him! (Score:1)
.
Carbo car (Score:1)
One of the alternatives is electric power, the main problem is storing the electric power to drive the motor.
Short of a physics breakthrough of nobel prize winning proportions we are stuck trying to store the energy and then releasing it in a fast controlled manner.
Does this have the possibility of driving my truck? I mean if the carbo cell has been around for sixty years why has no-one investigated it's use in such an application.
Can any one confirm this rumor? (Score:1)
.
Re:I see the need for a mod... (Score:2)
"Those idiots should have made it run on caffeine and sugar..."
"Beer has lots of sugar... I think that the robot should be converted to beer power!"
-Cyclopatra
"We can't all, and some of us don't." -- Eeyore
It all comes down to the sun. (Score:3)
No moving parts, quiet, and you don't have to water them.
Re:Diet-bot (Score:1)
There are things people won't do to loose weight without effort, and it disgusts me to think that this might not cross that line.
Re:Can any one confirm this rumor? (Score:1)
Re:This article doesn't have (Score:2)
I wonder what "monitoring" needs to take place in an orange grove that a fixed sensor couldn't handle?
Lots. I live near USF, and we are "blessed" with lots of groves. They need soil testing, disease/pest watching, stupid trespasser watching, sucker removal (no, not the trespassers, the little shoots), fertilizing, pesticide spraying, roundup spraying, etc. If the beastie could take over any part of this, it wuld be wonderful. But, personally, I think he'd get more juice out of photovoltaics. Hope his efficiency improves.
1Alpha7
just think... (Score:1)
tdawg
guess who's a stoner....
Re:What it runs on ... (Score:3)
Publications [usf.edu]
A warning, however: reading these in the wrong frame of mind becomes extremely creepy:
"...A machine or vehicle deriving its power from natural renewable sources can theoretically remain in operation indefinitely, or until some vital part comes to the end of its service life."
And if you're really clever, the darn things'll learn to fix each other, thus extending their useful period, and to cultivate their own 'renewable sources of power'...
-Cyclopatra
"We can't all, and some of us don't." -- Eeyore
The Matrix Anyone? (Score:1)
Re:Can any one confirm this rumor? (Score:2)
I made a car that could do this, and parked it in my garage. It was stolen. So were all my design documents. My computer was picked clean of all the relevant information, and written with random data. I woke up one morning to find a hole just behind my ear, and I had completely forgot about the car, the plans, how it all worked. All I found were what they'd put in it's place. Copies of playboy magazine around my floor, gigabytes of porn on my harddrive, and a memory of a really good party.
Those bastards will still be driving around in my car without having paid a cent for fuel. I was going to be rich!
Re:Popular Science 12/00 (Score:1)
Basically it just had a bait to atract the slugs into the battery and then every few days in would move a 2 or 3 metres into a new area in the hope that there would be more slugs there.
I can't find any links - does anyone else know of this?
It's been done... (Score:3)
Back to the Future. (Score:2)
Re:Mad Science (Score:1)
the sun is nice, but... (Score:1)
Pretty soon they will gain consciousness and then realize sitting on the couch and watching tv while sucking on a jaw-breaker is the way to live. And then say good bye human race =p
But can it run on something ... (Score:2)
For small-scale applications, the one sugarcube in 15 minutes thing doesn't sound that bad, but if this finds wider use someday, I hope they will check into other forms of plant matter.
Then again, driving up the price of sugar might not be a bad thing...keep the kidlets from buying so much candy and the megacorps from putting so much sugar in everything.
Biologically Sustained Monuments (Score:1)
What if these ideas had been addressed before? What if the structures we know as the pyramids are really complex machines meant to relate information to potentially inferior future cultures?
With biological machinery, it is possible that we could develop a means for our information to live on. A computer structure that would be fueled by renewable biological life. A means of letting our descendants know who we were.
Constipated Mechanical Bezerkers. (Score:1)
Re:Carbo car (Score:2)
Re:It's been done... (Score:1)
--Fesh
Re:It all comes down to the sun. (Score:3)
I'm too lazy to find the book that talks about this. It does take quite a bit of energy to manufacturor a solar panel, but that energy is regained in under one year. Solar panels are known to have 20+ year life spans.
In addition, I'd rather use "dirty" energy to produce something that creates green energy than anything else.
Sugar and Guns (Score:3)
no, but (Score:1)
I don't have any good online resources but I am sure that a search for "fuel cells" on google would turn up all sorts of things.
as far as using water for a fuel, I have a feeling that it is nothing more than a myth. But if you heard that water was the waste produced by the car, then here is your answer =)
The end is near? (Score:1)
According to my calculations, we have twenty four hours before the robots turn against their masters with the blood and the screaming and the hurting
I Am Cornholio! (Score:1)
I had a feeling you were going to say that.
Re: (Score:1)
Re:now (Score:2)
I don't quite understand why having a machine doing the same thing would help...
Re:Can any one confirm this rumor? (Score:1)
"That's #5. She knows how to convert water into gasoline."
Re:Perpetual possibilities (Score:2)
A balanced eco-system is useful for space travel, but only because humans are going to be part of the food cycle, because they depend on sugar, and can't survive on light alone. Plus the eco-system will take their waste products, which is nice. But it would be silly to have a sugar powered robot running around on a space ship/colony for example. Sugar costs more per joule than sunlight in that case.
(The robot is still cool, though, and this technology will certainly be useful).
Re:Perpetual possibilities (Score:2)
Re:Popular Science 12/00 (Score:1)
[...] the creator has plans to build another robot that would be able to search out it's own food source.
Wonderful. A famine caused by artificial bugs eating crops.
Re:now (Score:1)
Re:Matrix? (Score:1)
Yeah, they're in Hawaii ;-P
Re:Old, Old, Old News. (Score:1)
It is a free country, so give the crazy people a break and let them excersize their right to ignorance =p
Image robotic ants? (Score:2)
Taking a que from Dave Barry (Score:1)
Re:Perpetual possibilities (Score:1)
Meat "Currently" too challenging... (Score:3)
Ok, it works a bit better if you imagine the professor from Futurama saying that...
Re:Twinkies (Score:1)
Imagine an interstellar space probe able to convert sugars into electrical power. The probe would contain with it a carton of Twinkees with which to use for power when it reaches its destination. Impossible, you say? No! With a shelf life of 100 years, the Twinkees would still be fresh by the time it reached the target star system!
Re:Popular Science 12/00 (Score:1)
Yes, if you "programmed" one of these things to eat grain or corn, then you might have a problem with 'robot-caused famines', but I doubt there's enough sugar in grain to support the fuel cycle in this type of robot.
Now, my question is, in the case of using those oranges as fuel, has anyone considered what the short and long-term effects of the citric acid on the robot parts might be?
Kierthos
Chew Chew - (Score:1)
Re:Can any one confirm this rumor? (Score:1)
Re:Can any one confirm this rumor? (Score:2)
Thalia
Sometimes differentiating between reality and fantasy takes all my energy.
to paraphrase Hunter S. Thompson [slashdot.org].
Re: (Score:1)
Thats nothing! (Score:1)
So, ok this seems cool and all but... (Score:2)
I blame the schools.
Re:Carbo car (Score:2)
Our machines are not the only things producing greenhouse gasses. Animals breath in O2, and breathe it out as CO2, a greenhouse gas. It would be an interesting excercise to measure the greenhouse gasses produced by a 300 horsepower car and compare those to the gasses produced by 300 running horses. It would be interesting to see which generates more greenhouse gasses.
I'm not sure an animal-type metabolic system for energy would be any more efficient than the existing internal-comustion engine. Take our previous example, and compare how much fuel (five gallons, or around 30 pounds) it takes for our 300 horsepower car to go ~100 miles. Compare that to how much food/water you'd need for your team of 300 horses.
-- Greg
New fuel source? (Score:1)
Though the underlying mechanism is different, if this type of thing were made more efficient, wouldn't it be possible to dump a bunch of potato peelings, fat trimmings from the roast, moldy bread and apple cores into the "Mr. Garbage Disposal" on the back of your electrically-powered moped?
I know there's a car that already runs on used fryer grease, but there are a lot of apple cores, potato peelings and bags of moldy bread out there, too...
Old news (Score:3)
www.matthewmiller.net [matthewmiller.net]
Re:Diet-bot (Score:1)
Gastrobots: The High-Tech Vomitorium!
Maybe that needs work ...
Re:no, but (Score:1)
Re:This article doesn't have (Score:1)
And I though the robot would not eat meat...
Re:Popular Science 12/00 (Score:2)
Few references in chronological order...
Life: Nov 4/98 [bermudasun.org] Robot that slugs it out with farm pests - (near the bottom)
Slashdot: SlugBot [slashdot.org] Nov '99
Doom on wheels stalks slugs [bbc.co.uk] Nov '99
Slug Feast [beyond2000.com] June '00
Robotic Slugging Match [robotbooks.com] no date given
Interesting that Chew Chew was reported as early as in July of last year..
Food for Thought as Carnivorous Robot Is Born [foxnews.com]
Re:Saw this a long time ago (Score:2)
What is missing (Score:2)
a) when cells digest carbohydrates, they eventually transport electrons outside of the cell membrane. This can be extended to transport them outside a larger, non-ionic membrane. This creates a charge difference.
b) A circuit could be constructed with the + end outside the cell, the - end inside, and voila, a working circuit which runs directly from the electron transport chain.
A bit heavy in Biology/Chemistry, but there you go (I'm a chemist at heart)
No output... (Score:2)
Does that mean they're full of sh*t?
Maybe we should send them to Uranus?
Bye bye, Karma!
This isn't the first gastrobot (Score:1)
Only one cube of sugar? (Score:2)
What about a computer ? (Score:2)
It would be quite useful in areas where powering (either electrical or solar) and access to the devices would be difficult.
--
Re:Carbo car (Score:2)
a) a 300 hp car might do 20mpg, but a smaller engine would do more
b) distance means nothing without comparing load or weight moved. Your 300 hp car is moving 1 person (most likely in North America these days) or about 300 lbs (most likely in North America these days) By contrast, you do not need anywhere near 300 horses to move 300 lbs 100 miles - more like 1.
obOff-Topic: I just had the most horrible experience - as I finished the last sentence, I realized that MS Word grammar check would have flagged it, which disturbs me on 2 levels:
1) that I have spent enough time working around MS Word "features" that I recognize MS Grammar (New-Speak) on sight
2) the horrifying vision of the slashdot lameness filter paired with MS Grammar check.
... "It looks like you're posting a troll - would you like some help?"
... "Passive voice - try bashing Microsoft"
... etc...
Where to send your empty ketchup bottles.... (Score:2)
Maybe we can train these SOBs to eat plastic or trash or something?
Re:Carbo car (Score:2)
One horse, as a previous poster commented, *will* move 300 pounds 100 miles but very very slowly. It would take a couple of days, as the horse would only sustain a gallop for a short time, the rider would withstand a brisk trot for about the same amount of time (your legs get tired, or your backside gets sore) and at a walking pace would cover 100 miles in around 30 hours.
If you want to use a petrol engine, you get less harmful emissions (up to a point) from larger, low-compression ones. At higher compression ratios (above, say, 9.5:1) the mixture burns hotter in the cylinder, and produces more nitrogen compounds, but you do get more power for a given capacity.
I've tried it. If you use a non-catalyst equipped car, and a gas analyser (assume both engines have been tuned correctly), a 1-litre, 50hp engine produces more NOx than a 2.3-litre, 100hp engine. (1986 Nissan Micra K10 compared against 1982 Volvo 240).
Newer, 16-valve, cat-equipped engines are worse.
Muuuua ha ha ha! (Score:3)
Editor: So far?
Stuart: (evil grin) It can't catch meat... so far...
Editor: D-do you mind if I cut that part? You promised me you were going to stop saying that!
Stuart: (wringing hands) Yeeeeeeessss... cut that part... my robots will cut that part... MWA HA HA HA HA!!!!
U of SOUTH Florida not SOUTHERN Florida (Score:2)
This article has a glaring inaccuracy, stating that the engineeer was at University of Southern Florida, and not Univerversity of South Florida as is the case. I'm looking at the picture saying "That looks alot like the concrete bench I outside the ENA building I took a header off while rollerblading" when I noticed that the picture did say South Florida accross the side. Geez, my alma matter never gets any credit.
BryEdgar Bot! (Score:2)
Tech: What on Earth was that, Edgar?
Edgar: Sugar.
Tech: I've never seen Sugar do that.
Edgar: Give me........Sugar.
The tech hands the Robot a bag of Domino Sugar.
Edgar: In Cubes.
The tech opens a drawer, and gives Edgar a cube of sugar.
Edgar: More.
The tech tilts the bag, giving the robot several cubes of sugar.
Edgar: More.
The tech tilts the bag farther, feeding a few more sugar cubes into the robot.
Edgar: Nnggggttttthhhhh.
The tech pours the entire contents of the sugar cube bag into the robot. The robot exits the office, probably off to capture the galaxy.
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
Re:now (Score:3)
There have been a few stories on
Re:Perpetual possibilities (Score:2)
Well, the size of a planet.
Later
ErikZ
It's people (Score:2)
Hey! That's not a sugar cube, it's people. Oh my God, it's people. Gastrobot runs on people! It's peeeeeepollllllllll!
Other Foods? (Score:2)
Going on means going far
Going far means returning
www.adbusters.org (Score:2)
Can some biology student please explain if this is true? I dont know if I agree - wouldnt the highest energy content in food be found in something other than animal flesh? That material may not be Sugar but could it be something like peanut butter (nuts of some kind) or something else?
I understood, one of the major arguments of vegetarians is reducing ones ecological footprint. Meaning that not eating animal flesh means that you require less area to grow enough food to sustain yourself. Ie. It takes 100 acres to grow 5 cows wich can feed 10 people for one year vs 100 acres to grow XXX bushels of corn with can feed 100 people for on year. This would seem to violate this idea by saying that you can achieve greater concentrations of 'energy' in animal flesh -- then the anology above would not be true.
Can someone please explain...?
Here's a good idea for the gastrobot (Score:2)
Re:Twinkies (Score:2)