5 ms·
Lots of small, easily replaceable robots are cheaper than a few giant robots (and probably easier to develop; certainly cheaper). Also, when one breaks it doesn
by sorbus 16y ago
Lots of small, easily replaceable robots are cheaper than a few giant robots (and probably easier to develop; certainly cheaper). Also, when one breaks it doesn't need to be replaced, whereas with a larger, more expensive one it's harder to just let it die. Low-cost is key for anything which is entirely robotic. They also won't disrupt anything by being massive.
As far as capacity goes, "The nanomaterial, patented at MIT, can absorb up to 20 times its weight in oil." [1] I wouldn't call it vaporware, at least not yet; it's still being tested and developed, so it's a prototype. Too early to say that nothing will ever come of it. The bit about cleaning it up in a month, on the other hand, is certainly vapor, or at least exaggeration. Maybe it would work with a really bit swarm, but that's less likely until they can prove that it works really well.
[1] http://senseable.mit.edu/seaswarm/ http://senseable.mit.edu/seaswarm/
- Kliment 16y agoThe material itself I find promising, but why not just use that with existing boats? The robot component is not justified. Also, given the size of the bot, 20 times its weight in oil means returning to base every hour or so. I see no reason to limit collection to such small amounts at a time. I'm glad you agree with me that the one month claim is bogus.
- sorbus 16y agoI didn't realize that you were talking about using it with existing boats; doing that instead of robots is pretty obviously a better solution, assuming that the material can be produced in large enough quantities, which may or may not be the case.
- mhb 16y agoWhat? Why not have big ships dragging around huge rolls of the material. Since they're big, they could have onboard processing to heat it up and remove the oil. How do little robots or big robots begin to make sense for this?
- sorbus 16y agoWell, little ones are easier to prototype. They also are less likely to get in the way of anything. Focusing on effectiveness, though, would probably be better to retrofit a bunch of large ships to drag it around and process the fabric on-board. If the little ones are effective enough once deployed, that will probably be the ultimate outcome. But the technology, right now, is unproven, and so no one is going to invest the millions[1] it would take to retrofit ships. The distinction between large robots and large manned ships is important to note, though; I was thinking that Kliment was referring to large robots, and therefor didn't even consider manned ships (tunnel vision can be irritating, sometimes). You're thinking about large, manned ships, with no need to function autonomously, based on standard ships, and therefor able to be repaired without as much effort - minimizing the amount of new technology in a solution makes it less likely to break, outside of the new technology. That is obviously superior to a swarm of small robots, except for prototyping. Also, swarms of small robots are considered shiny technology right now. [1] I don't know how much it would cost. I'm guessing a lot; take the number with a whole lot of salt.