test/expected/SLASHDOT/0102640424.header

   1 0MIT Graduate Creates Robot That Swims Through Pipes To Find Out If They're Leaking (fastcompany.com)   null/SLASHDOT/0102640424                70
   2 i  Thursday September 06, 2018 @11:30PM (BeauHD)
   3 i  from the leak-detecting dept.
   4 i
   5 i    A  28-year-old  MIT  graduate  named  You  Wu  spent  six years
   6 i    [1]developing  a low-cost robot designed to find leaks in pipes
   7 i    early  ,  both  to  save water and to avoid bigger damage later
   8 i    from  bursting water mains. "Called Lighthouse, the robot looks
   9 i    like  a  badminton  birdie,"  reports  Fast  Company.  "A  soft
  10 i    'skirt'  on  the  device is covered with sensors. As it travels
  11 i    through  pipes, propelled by the flowing water, suction tugs at
  12 i    the  device  when  there's a leak, and it records the location,
  13 i    making a map of critical leaks to fix." From the report:
  14 i
  15 i    >  MIT  doctoral  student You Wu spent six years developing the
  16 i    design,  building on research that earlier students began under
  17 i    a  project  sponsored  by  a  university in Saudi Arabia, where
  18 i    most  drinking  water  comes from expensive desalination plants
  19 i    and  around a third of it is lost to leaks. It took three years
  20 i    before  he  had  a  working  prototype. Then Wu got inspiration
  21 i    from  an  unexpected  source:  At  a party with his partner, he
  22 i    accidentally  stepped  on  her  dress. She noticed immediately,
  23 i    unsurprisingly,  and  Wu  realized  that he could use a similar
  24 i    skirt-like  design  on  a  robot so that the robot could detect
  25 i    subtle  tugs  from  the suction at each leak. Wu graduated from
  26 i    MIT  in  June,  and  is  now launching the technology through a
  27 i    startup  called  [2]WatchTower Robotics . The company will soon
  28 i    begin  pilots in Australia and in Cambridge, Massachusetts. One
  29 i    challenge  now, he says, is creating a guide so water companies
  30 i    can use the device on their own.
  31 i
  32 i
  33 i
  34 i    [1] https://www.fastcompany.com/90232363/this-leak-seeking-rob-
  35 i    ot-just-won-the-u-s-james-dyson-award
  36 i
  37 i    [2] http://watchtowerrobotics.com/
  38 i