I dislike picking up my dog’s droppings almost as much as stepping in them. However, a fleet of these automated scoopers could one day safeguard my shoe soles from dog droppings without reducing me to picking up poop.
The team at University of Pennsylvania’s GRASP lab programmed the PR2 robot to automatically seek out and identify Potentially Offensive Objects for Pickup (POOP) from a given field using its colour cameras. Once all the POOP in the area has been localised, the robot will drive to each pile individually, pick it up using a store-bought poop scoop and deposit it in a bucket for disposal. PR2, bucket and scoop together comprise the $US400,000 Perception Of Offensive Products and Sensorised Control Of Object Pickup (POOP SCOOP) system and is capable of clearing 12 individual POOPs in 20 minutes.
That’s fantastic and all, but once it’s done clearing an area, what do you have? A robot holding a big pail of shit, that’s what. Can someone please integrate an AshPoopie or at least a Mr Fusion into this — like, stat? [IEEE via Popular Science]
Sam
Tuesday, October 18, 2011 at 2:01 PM…can’t I just program it to fling it over the fence?
Andrew
Tuesday, October 18, 2011 at 2:08 PMpeck (pk)
a traditional unit of volume, formerly used for both liquids and solids but now used mostly for dry commodities such as grains, berries, and fruits. A peck is 2 gallons, 8 quarts, or 1/4 bushel. In the U. S. customary system, a peck holds 537.605 cubic inches or approximately 8.8098 liters. In the British Imperial system, a peck is a little larger, holding 554.84 cubic inches or approximately 9.0923 liters. In Scotland, the traditional peck held about 9.1 liters for wheat, peas, or beans and about 12.1 liters for barley or oats. The word “peck”, originally spelled “pek”, comes from the name of a similar old French unit; the origin of the French unit is not known.
Mike
Tuesday, October 18, 2011 at 3:02 PMWhy thank you, I did not know that!