Comments on: Freaky Fish Friday: Robofiche, who else?

By: Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto. (Mommy, I want a sea-robot) « OH, FOR THE LOVE OF SCIENCE!

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 22:58:49 +0000

[...] tip to Oceans 4Ever for their post on Robo-fiche, the beginning of my robotic sea-critter [...]

By: Allie Wilkinson

Allie Wilkinson — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 22:08:19 +0000

I think they would have to change the design and make it less shiny in order to use it in the real world. I know certain predatory fish are drawn to shiny objects that look like fish scales, so they should in order to cut down on accidental ingestion.

By: fatpin

fatpin — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 03:26:58 +0000

This is cool, but if it costs 29k per fish than it isn’t going to be very practical in real bodies of water. Like you said, something could eat it, or people could go find them to keep/sell for themselves. Maybe this can be an expensive prototype that will make way for cheaper copies in the future.

By: Eric

Eric — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 01:50:01 +0000

I think chemical and pollution contaminant detection is a great use of an AUV (Autonomous Underwater Vehicle). I like the aesthetics of their design and believe it is a good publicity item with potential for some outreach built into the fact that they look so much like the cast of the “rainbow Fish” series of books. Still though, I recall some advanced swimming robots a few years ago, so I am skeptical that these are a major advance as a robotics, or mechanical design.

From a purely technological point of view I fail to see how these very decorative devices have any advantage, aside from aesthetics and possibly outreach, over the “more traditional” AUV’s such as the torpedo shaped ones used by Rutger’s Project Cool. If anything I would think the design would have a higher failure rate, and the ocean is a very harsh environment to operate equipment like this for long periods.

Still, extremely cool, and I would love to have one to test in both Long Island Sound and Belize for reaction of other marine organisms.

By: Jives

Jives — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 20:50:03 +0000

I don’t know.

Sounds like the quickest way to generate robot fishermen.