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Add snowblowing to the list of jobs robots are taking over
By adamg on Thu, 02/21/2019 - 9:15am
Just a semi-autonomous snowblower in Cambridge, that’s all. pic.twitter.com/F1tnoe2aRT
— Aleszu Bajak (@aleszubajak) February 21, 2019
In Danehy Park. WBZ talked to the MIT engineer who built it.
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Blower
Cool invention for the suburban driveway. What happens in the city when it gets jammed by running over trash/dirty diapers?
I am not ok with this
Haven't comic books and movies taught us the dangers of this yet?
It's all fun and games
until someone or a pet gets hurt.
Good post Adam
Time to buy a van and spray paint "Robot Repair" on the side.
snow
I, for one, look forward to serving our robot overlords. -Kent Brockman
Stupidest article ever.
Stupidest article ever.
OK, so is it remotely operated or autonomous? Two different things. If it does feature a vision system and obstacle avoidance, how exactly do they work? What sensors are they using for obstacle avoidance? Or by "vision system" do they mean "a WiFi camera"?
"pure remote" and "obstacle avoiding" modes available
Anon asked:
Answer: Both. (Sort of.)
From the WBZ article:
The rest of the WBZ article makes it sound like the device's autonomous functionality is probably pretty limited (the creator suggests that it can do a parking lot by itself, then talks about remotely piloting it in the context of a sidewalk or driveway).
The inventor responded to the twitter thread with a link to the page on his website describing the project: DK LABORATORIES: Chomper: Electric Obstacle Avoiding Snowblower
(Adamg also linked to it below.)
The "Chomper" page goes into the semi-autonomous/safety features a bit more, eg:
The problem:
The solution:
and
and
and
I hope that helped clear up a little of your confusion. :-)
I see they put giant googly eyes on it.
Seems like a good plan to make the thing look cute and approachable to small children.
Robotic Landscaping
Is snowballing!
More details on the googly-eyed snowblower
Electric Snowblower 9000.