| 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 |
| 7 | o Reference: 0102640424\r |
| 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 | [1]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:\r |
| 21 | \r |
| 22 | > MIT doctoral student You Wu spent six years developing the\r |
| 23 | design, building on research that earlier students began under\r |
| 24 | a project sponsored by a university in Saudi Arabia, where\r |
| 25 | most drinking water comes from expensive desalination plants\r |
| 26 | and around a third of it is lost to leaks. It took three years\r |
| 27 | before he had a working prototype. Then Wu got inspiration\r |
| 28 | from an unexpected source: At a party with his partner, he\r |
| 29 | accidentally stepped on her dress. She noticed immediately,\r |
| 30 | unsurprisingly, and Wu realized that he could use a similar\r |
| 31 | skirt-like design on a robot so that the robot could detect\r |
| 32 | subtle tugs from the suction at each leak. Wu graduated from\r |
| 33 | MIT in June, and is now launching the technology through a\r |
| 34 | startup called [2]WatchTower Robotics . The company will soon\r |
| 35 | begin pilots in Australia and in Cambridge, Massachusetts. One\r |
| 36 | challenge now, he says, is creating a guide so water companies\r |
| 37 | can use the device on their own.\r |
| 38 | \r |
| 39 | \r |
| 40 | \r |
| 41 | [1] https://www.fastcompany.com/90232363/this-leak-seeking-rob-\r |
| 42 | ot-just-won-the-u-s-james-dyson-award\r |
| 43 | \r |
| 44 | [2] http://watchtowerrobotics.com/\r |
| 45 | \r |
| 46 | \r |
| 47 | ** What we are not told ... (Score:1)\r |
| 48 | (by Alain Williams ( 2972 ))\r |
| 49 | \r |
| 50 | \r |
| 51 | is he still with his partner who's dress he trod on ?\r |
| 52 | \r |
| 53 | ** pig (Score:1, Informative)\r |
| 54 | (by Anonymous Coward)\r |
| 55 | \r |
| 56 | \r |
| 57 | Congratulations, you reinvented the pig.\r |
| 58 | [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]\r |
| 59 | \r |
| 60 | \r |
| 61 | \r |
| 62 | \r |
| 63 | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigging\r |
| 64 | \r |
| 65 | ** \r |
| 66 | \r |
| 67 | ** Re: (Score:2)\r |
| 68 | (by An Ominous Coward ( 13324 ))\r |
| 69 | \r |
| 70 | \r |
| 71 | Ridiculous, how dare you plebeians libel our foremost\r |
| 72 | technology elite. It's MIT, of course what they're doing is\r |
| 73 | utterly novel and deserving of fawning media coverage.\r |
| 74 | (\r |
| 75 | [1]https://puretechltd.com/technology/purerobotics-pipeline-i-\r |
| 76 | nspection-system/ [puretechltd.com])\r |
| 77 | \r |
| 78 | \r |
| 79 | \r |
| 80 | \r |
| 81 | [1]\r |
| 82 | https://puretechltd.com/technology/purerobotics-pipeline-insp-\r |
| 83 | ection-system/\r |
| 84 | \r |
| 85 | \r |
| 86 | ** They tried that robot in Montreal... (Score:2)\r |
| 87 | (by ls671 ( 1122017 ))\r |
| 88 | \r |
| 89 | \r |
| 90 | I hear they tried that robot in Montreal and it crashed due to\r |
| 91 | memory exhaustion.\r |
| 92 | Montreal is one of the oldest city in North America and there\r |
| 93 | are so many leaks in its water system that it loses 30% of its\r |
| 94 | fresh water supply.\r |
| 95 | Makes you wonder what is the average water loss in other systems.\r |
| 96 | [1]https://montrealgazette.com/ne... [montrealgazette.com]\r |
| 97 | [2]https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada... [www.cbc.ca]\r |
| 98 | \r |
| 99 | \r |
| 100 | \r |
| 101 | \r |
| 102 | [1]\r |
| 103 | https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/by-the-numbers-30-pe-\r |
| 104 | rcent-of-montreals-water-is-lost-due-to-leaky-city-pipes\r |
| 105 | [2]\r |
| 106 | https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/city-water-leaks-wasting-millions-\r |
| 107 | of-tax-dollars-1.1048035\r |
| 108 | \r |
| 109 | ** Badminton Birdie? (Score:2)\r |
| 110 | (by TechyImmigrant ( 175943 ))\r |
| 111 | \r |
| 112 | \r |
| 113 | It's called a shuttlecock you blithering idiot.\r |
| 114 | \r |
| 115 | \r |