Trash-Bot

Is this so that Americans can get fatter still by taking even less exercise ?

My suggestion is that your idea's stupid.

Graham

Plus snow, ice, rain, ambient temperature.

Mitch

Not all us Americans are fat... some are disabled and can't walk, so this device could be quite useful. The problems are that you need a buried wire or some means of guiding it, or an expensive differential GPS system. The thing has got to know where it is, and you can't do it by dead reckoning. Another problem is that the unit might get thrown away with the trash, or that someone would steal it. Also, if a baby is lying on the ground in front if it, and its litigious mother is nearby watching, are you confident you'll remain financially solvent? All these are common problems to robots you send away on errands and expect to come back.

Mike Ross

It is however home to the 400 pound human.

No - it's a joke. In fact I suspect it's a troll really. Makes you wonder how ppl manage to live without machines to do everything for them doesn't it ?

How about a breathing machine to take away the effort of using your own lungs too ?

Graham

My next design is a device that emits bursts of H2S heavily diluted with CH3 and CO2, and triggers an MP3 player at the same time, playing God Save the Queen on a bassoon.

Bite your tongue, obesity in Britain is growing at a much faster rate than in the US. Not that most British look the picture of health anyway. ;-)

"Obesity levels have risen sharply in the past 20 years in many countries with the number of overweight people growing fastest in Britain, the United States and Australia, an OECD report warned."

"The report by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development said in two decades obesity had doubled in the United States and Australia, while in Britain the rate had tripled."

"Twenty percent of the adult population in both Australia and Britain is now regarded as officially overweight, the same percentage of US citizens considered obese at the beginning of the 1990s."

Looks like Britain is the most obese country in Europe.

Or more that your posting is stupid. I mean, really, why be such an ass about it?

You could hack the brains out of one of those robotic lawn mowers. I don't recall them needing buried wire. Likewise a radar sensor could deal with unexpected obstructions. Even machine vision would work. Since it's following a regular track it'd be simple comparison against a known-clear path, not actual pattern recognition.

Dealing with someone stealing it isn't technological, but some sort of "I'm too far from my base station, scream like a banshee" feature might be entertaining. Heh, have it scream "help, help, I've been stolen from..." and start frantically running it's drive wheels.

Hmmm, if they're cheap enough one of those robo-mowers might indeed be a cool starting point. Teach it to traverse a fake lawn path and then hack it onto something with enough drive motor horsepower to move the weight.

You could start the experiment by building the cart and using a radio controlled car circuit to operate it manually. Prove that the drive hardware works and then cobble up the brain for doing it automagically. Hmm, an R/C car design using a gas motor and some sort of battery operated starter would probably get around the rather hefty battery requirements that moving several cans of trash might require.

-Bill Kearney

What is CH3?

"....scream like a banshee...." reminds me of a problem we once had in a medical center setting. The facility consisted of multiple buildings spread over a wide campus area, and were essentially freely open to the public. Thieves kept stealing tv sets from various locations, and security was unable to patrol open areas effectively (this was before the advent of camera surveillance and other tv security devices). We decided to install a sonalert in series with a 9v battery, a tilt switch, and a key-operated switch to arm the system and allow the technicians to install the sets without activating the sonalert. For the next six months or so we would almost daily find squawking tv sets in hallways or classrooms, but we didn't lose a single tv after that.

Steve

I apologize to the group for the above quote mess - I am thoroughly chastized and have added QuoteFix to my OE.

Steve

A typo for 4

C'mon, guys, all this stuff is _way_ too complicated. It's not the _robot_ you need to place accurately, it's the _trash_. I recommend using Kevlar-reinforced bags, an extra-heavy-duty trash can, a bit of silicon carbide and water, and a spark plug--ta-daa! the Trash Cannon. Measure the weight of the trash bag, and adjust the amount of carbide with a PIC controlling a small motorized hopper. The metering curve would have to be calibrated experimentally.

Alternatively, if local laws or jumpy neighbours render pyrotechnics inappropriate, you could use a Trash Trebuchet. This would have the advantage of a much more predictable trajectory, since the initial velocity of the payload is more nearly constant than with a gun.

Either of these would solve the navigation problem, since the relative positions of trash can and curb can be calibrated in advance, and both would be a bit big and nasty to steal. (Control algorithm suggestions welcomed.) A small CO2 laser (eye-safe!) could be used to shoo pedestrians out of the line of fire.

Cheers,

Phil Hobbs

I don't know about a breathing machine, but it's obvious that a great number of Brits haven't taken up the electric toothbrush in droves - or even the manual version for that matter! ...and then there's nothing quite as healthy as warm beer and bangers to keep the ol' ticker ticking.

From:Pooh Bear snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com

I read that iRobot

makers of the Roomba line of robotic floor care products (which Pooh Bear will certainly eschew) is offering their platform as a base unit for robotic developers. It might be what you're looking for in that it's the perfect size for holding a trash can although I have no idea what the weight limitations would be. Others have discouraged you because of potential problems with pedestrians, theft, directional stability or traction in adverse weather conditions. These are the very same objections raised at the turn of the 20th century when automobiles were introduced. Given the 100+ year success of the automobile perhaps those objections are not insurmountable! I think your idea has merit particularly for the elderly or infirm and even for those just not wanting to dash out in the rain. While it clearly won't be suitable for every geograhic variation, or affordable for many initially, I think there are still many millions of homes that would comprise a market for the product.

From:Nehmo Sergheyev snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com

Sorry, but what's a banger?

British word for sausage.

From:Winfield Hill Winfield snipped-for-privacy@newsguy.com

I once toyed with the idea of trash cans sunken into the ground, walk outside, step on foot-pedal to open lid.

On trash pickup day the cans would rise out of the ground so the automated trucks could grab them and empty.

...Jim Thompson

I've seen such things. Forty years ago neighbors had something similar, though there was nothing automatic in it. I think there is the problem of someone falling in and breaking a leg; lawyers.

Hi Jim, Actually, about 25 years ago, my mom and dad had underground trash cans. You walked out to the street, stepped on a raised part of the lid, and dropped your trash into the can. The garbage guys had to open a larger lid, and lift the whole can (a pretty typical galvanized one) out of the hole, and then empty it into the truck. Biggest problem was you usually filled the can, and then had to stack bags up on top. Since this was Palm Desert, you had to worry about wildlife spreading the trash all over the place from the bags, but I think that was why they had the in-ground cans in the first place.

Charlie