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299a08f3 NR |
1 | MIT GRADUATE CREATES ROBOT THAT SWIMS THROUGH PIPES TO FIND OUT \r |
2 | IF THEY'RE LEAKING (FASTCOMPANY.COM) \r | |
3 | \r | |
4 | Thursday September 06, 2018 @11:30PM (BeauHD)\r | |
5 | from the leak-detecting dept.\r | |
6 | \r | |
c715ea02 | 7 | o Reference: 0102640424\r |
299a08f3 NR |
8 | o News link: https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/18/09/06/2058201/mit-graduate-creates-robot-that-swims-through-pipes-to-find-out-if-theyre-leaking\r |
9 | o Source link: https://www.fastcompany.com/90232363/this-leak-seeking-robot-just-won-the-u-s-james-dyson-award\r | |
10 | \r | |
11 | \r | |
12 | A 28-year-old MIT graduate named You Wu spent six years\r | |
13 | developing a low-cost robot designed to find leaks in pipes\r | |
14 | early, both to save water and to avoid bigger damage later\r | |
15 | from bursting water mains. "Called Lighthouse, the robot looks\r | |
16 | like a badminton birdie," reports Fast Company. "A soft\r | |
17 | 'skirt' on the device is covered with sensors. As it travels\r | |
18 | through pipes, propelled by the flowing water, suction tugs at\r | |
19 | the device when there's a leak, and it records the location,\r | |
20 | making a map of critical leaks to fix." From the report: MIT\r | |
21 | doctoral student You Wu spent six years developing the design,\r | |
22 | building on research that earlier students began under a\r | |
23 | project sponsored by a university in Saudi Arabia, where most\r | |
24 | drinking water comes from expensive desalination plants and\r | |
25 | around a third of it is lost to leaks. It took three years\r | |
26 | before he had a working prototype. Then Wu got inspiration\r | |
27 | from an unexpected source: At a party with his partner, he\r | |
28 | accidentally stepped on her dress. She noticed immediately,\r | |
29 | unsurprisingly, and Wu realized that he could use a similar\r | |
30 | skirt-like design on a robot so that the robot could detect\r | |
31 | subtle tugs from the suction at each leak. Wu graduated from\r | |
32 | MIT in June, and is now launching the technology through a\r | |
33 | startup called WatchTower Robotics. The company will soon\r | |
34 | begin pilots in Australia and in Cambridge, Massachusetts. One\r | |
35 | challenge now, he says, is creating a guide so water companies\r | |
36 | can use the device on their own.\r | |
37 | \r | |
38 | \r | |
39 | ** What we are not told ... (Score:1)\r | |
40 | (by Alain Williams ( 2972 ))\r | |
41 | \r | |
42 | \r | |
43 | is he still with his partner who's dress he trod on ?\r | |
44 | \r | |
45 | ** pig (Score:1, Informative)\r | |
46 | (by Anonymous Coward)\r | |
47 | \r | |
48 | \r | |
49 | Congratulations, you reinvented the pig.\r | |
50 | [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]\r | |
51 | \r | |
52 | \r | |
53 | \r | |
54 | \r | |
55 | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigging\r | |
56 | \r | |
57 | ** \r | |
58 | \r | |
59 | ** Re: (Score:2)\r | |
60 | (by An Ominous Coward ( 13324 ))\r | |
61 | \r | |
62 | \r | |
63 | Ridiculous, how dare you plebeians libel our foremost\r | |
64 | technology elite. It's MIT, of course what they're doing is\r | |
65 | utterly novel and deserving of fawning media coverage.\r | |
66 | (\r | |
67 | [1]https://puretechltd.com/technology/purerobotics-pipeline-i-\r | |
68 | nspection-system/ [puretechltd.com])\r | |
69 | \r | |
70 | \r | |
71 | \r | |
72 | \r | |
73 | [1]\r | |
74 | https://puretechltd.com/technology/purerobotics-pipeline-insp-\r | |
75 | ection-system/\r | |
76 | \r | |
77 | \r | |
78 | ** They tried that robot in Montreal... (Score:2)\r | |
79 | (by ls671 ( 1122017 ))\r | |
80 | \r | |
81 | \r | |
82 | I hear they tried that robot in Montreal and it crashed due to\r | |
83 | memory exhaustion.\r | |
84 | Montreal is one of the oldest city in North America and there\r | |
85 | are so many leaks in its water system that it loses 30% of its\r | |
86 | fresh water supply.\r | |
87 | Makes you wonder what is the average water loss in other systems.\r | |
88 | [1]https://montrealgazette.com/ne... [montrealgazette.com]\r | |
89 | [2]https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada... [www.cbc.ca]\r | |
90 | \r | |
91 | \r | |
92 | \r | |
93 | \r | |
94 | [1]\r | |
95 | https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/by-the-numbers-30-pe-\r | |
96 | rcent-of-montreals-water-is-lost-due-to-leaky-city-pipes\r | |
97 | [2]\r | |
98 | https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/city-water-leaks-wasting-millions-\r | |
99 | of-tax-dollars-1.1048035\r | |
100 | \r | |
101 | ** Badminton Birdie? (Score:2)\r | |
102 | (by TechyImmigrant ( 175943 ))\r | |
103 | \r | |
104 | \r | |
105 | It's called a shuttlecock you blithering idiot.\r | |
106 | \r | |
107 | \r |