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The writing is abysmal. "[...] or they can try and get into the building, which seems like it’s probably super dangerous". O RLY? "[...] a single segment in a

The writing is abysmal. "[...] or they can try and get into the building, which seems like it’s probably super dangerous". O RLY? "[...] a single segment in a robot that can be extended to an arbitrary length by just adding on more segments". It seems like it would be subject to something analogous to the rocket equation -- the more segments, the more water required for levitation, which again makes the whole thing heavier. Not trying to middle-brow this, and I am certainly neither a rocket- or robot-engineer, nor a firefighter, but wouldn't a series of obstacle-crossing robots carrying a hose be more feasible?

317070 8y ago
I was thinking the same thing, but was actually very optimistic of how high this thing could go given the rocket equation. Does someone know how much pressure you need to get to a height of X with a system like this? I'd say that given we have 10m fountains, it would be pretty all right. Another way to look at this, instead of the water escaping the hose of the firefighter on the street-level, you could steer the whole water column with this thing.
rtkwe 8y ago
Using higher pressure water will also increase the total available thrust without requiring more water. That's a lot easier to play with and increase than the analogous change in a rocket. > wouldn't a series of obstacle-crossing robots carrying a hose be more feasible It's possible but there's a lot of problems there too. There's all the problems of room + obstacle navigation that's vexed robotics for a while at the same time pulling a long flexible object weighing a few hundred pounds (in the case of a regular fire hose, less if you use a high pressure misting system like the post but that is still going to be fairly heavy to avoid damage) in a way that won't bind on some obstacle. All of that in a very challenging environment where any light based system is going to have trouble because of smoke and heat.
Retric 8y ago
You don't need to lift all segments at the same time. Just have some slack at one end and undulate down the line. Picture a long chain of VVVVVV you can move one side of that V at a time. Based on the video you could probably move 20 feet at a time without many issues, if you get those 20 feet moving at say 20 mph that's 100 feet moving at 5 MPH.

317070 8y ago

I was thinking the same thing, but was actually very optimistic of how high this thing could go given the rocket equation. Does someone know how much pressure you need to get to a height of X with a system like this? I'd say that given we have 10m fountains, it would be pretty all right. Another way to look at this, instead of the water escaping the hose of the firefighter on the street-level, you could steer the whole water column with this thing.

rtkwe 8y ago

Using higher pressure water will also increase the total available thrust without requiring more water. That's a lot easier to play with and increase than the analogous change in a rocket. > wouldn't a series of obstacle-crossing robots carrying a hose be more feasible It's possible but there's a lot of problems there too. There's all the problems of room + obstacle navigation that's vexed robotics for a while at the same time pulling a long flexible object weighing a few hundred pounds (in the case of a regular fire hose, less if you use a high pressure misting system like the post but that is still going to be fairly heavy to avoid damage) in a way that won't bind on some obstacle. All of that in a very challenging environment where any light based system is going to have trouble because of smoke and heat.

Retric 8y ago

You don't need to lift all segments at the same time. Just have some slack at one end and undulate down the line. Picture a long chain of VVVVVV you can move one side of that V at a time. Based on the video you could probably move 20 feet at a time without many issues, if you get those 20 feet moving at say 20 mph that's 100 feet moving at 5 MPH.