Robots to Help Farmers 50
Roland Piquepaille writes "Robots designed to help farmers have been built before, but this time, engineers from the University of Warwick have chosen to develop robots that will reduce farm labor costs. In recent months, they've built a robotic mushroom picker, an inflatable conveyor belt and a grass cutting robot that might also be used by golf course owners."
Or you know... (Score:3, Insightful)
Let's see your fancy schmancy robots do that.
Re:Or you know... (Score:4, Insightful)
Plus, the machines will not leave little hills to hit your golf ball onto (you have to play it where it lands, thats the rule!) or stamp the ground flat with their massive weight. Of course, a golf course is massive, so your going to need a lot of cows to cut it down in a reasonable amount of time. Their not the fastest creatures either, so expect them to be out there practically all the time; Of course golf players will need to play through which will slow the cows down even more since PETA would never allow Cows to be hit by golf balls. Lastly, its unlikly you could teach a cow that certain areas must have different levels of grass.
Re:And you forgot the cow poop. (Score:2)
I'd sure hate to get my golf ball stuck in one.
Re:And you forgot the cow poop. (Score:1)
Re:Or you know... (Score:2)
Re:Or you know... you could use cows/goats (Score:3, Interesting)
followed by
Or you know, they could just get a bunch of cows to do the job instead.
Hmm. We used to have a goat that "mowed" our two-acre lawn (on a 42 acre tree farm). I think it gave milk too.
And, it didn't rust.
In fact, it ate cans. So, if my goat met the farming robot, it would probably be thinking "Hmm. Lunch!"
Revenge tastes best when accompanied by chewing sounds.
And in other news (Score:1)
Will this be like Hybrid cars? (Score:1, Interesting)
Nis
Re:Will this be like Hybrid cars? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Will this be like Hybrid cars? (Score:2)
All of the paid for by doing what? Eventually robots will be capable of doing ANY job that human is capable of doing. Not necessarily in our life times, but at some point labor is going
Re:Will this be like Hybrid cars? (Score:2)
Re:Will this be like Hybrid cars? (Score:2)
That is enough to change everything about the way that we view labor rights, unemployme
Re:Will this be like Hybrid cars? (Score:3, Informative)
"Sir, My First Job..." (Score:3, Funny)
Stop the press! (Score:1, Flamebait)
Now, before you flamebait me, seriously, the fact that they do crummy jobs is the main argument for why many people think we should be 'nice/fair' to the illegals... you know, so they can suck up our tax dollars.
Robots Unite! (Score:3, Funny)
Owner: What's the hold up? Why aren't these mushrooms being picked?!?
Foreman: It's the robots, sir. They're refusing to work until they get a break.
Owner: A break?!? Outrageous!!!
Foreman: It gets worse. They said they'd like to unionize.
Re:Robots Unite! (Score:2)
Awesome (Score:2)
Re:Awesome (Score:1, Interesting)
One problem with circular fields is that the area between fields and between fields & lot-lines goes wasted. You can completely tile a plane (e.g. Nebraska) with rectangles, but complete coverage with (finite sized) circles is impossible.
That said, in desert countries (e.g middle east), where irrigation is absolutely required, you do see circular fields, separated by sand. Th
Re:Awesome (Score:2)
Obviously never been to nebraska (Score:1)
Re:Awesome (Score:1, Interesting)
This is a bad idea, think about it from a mathematical perspective.
By using a circle (no matter how large), you're alaways going to have parts of the land that will not covered by a sweep out from the center. Imagine a circle inside a box, if the robot a
Re:Awesome (Score:2)
I understand your point, but the extra land could be used for housing and storage. Or better yet, to plant trees
See my previous post. in this thread. (Score:1)
No, but early threshing machines (Score:3, Interesting)
Not strictly on topic perhaps, but goes to show that there is nothing much new under the sun.
Still, the whole thing reminds me of the Australian attempts to build robot sheep shearers, a brilliant idea if you don't mind cleaning the blood off the wal
Re:No, but early threshing machines (Score:3, Interesting)
Tip of the iceburg (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Tip of the iceburg (Score:2)
Re:Tip of the iceburg (Score:2, Funny)
They have a Picture (Score:2, Funny)
As well as a conceptual drawing for a fertilizer-spreading machine, working along side a happy human farmer: http://forums.eveofthewar.com/photos/albums/userpi cs/10001/churchA_02a.jpg [eveofthewar.com]
... on a farm, far, far away (iowa, anyway) (Score:2)
Life imitates MMORPGs? (Score:1)
But the same argument applies. Why would anybody spend good money to own a farm, and then spend even more money buying a robot to run the farm for them? I know it's not forbidden by the Terms-of-Service but it still seems kind of shady to me.
There's not much left for the robots to do (Score:4, Informative)
It's true there are still labor-intensive things like fruit picking where advanced robots may one day replace illegal immigrants, but a lot of agriculture already takes place with a bare minimum of human involvement to farm hundreds of thousands of acres of prime crops like corn, wheat, and soybeans.
Racists (Score:1, Flamebait)
They're a bunch of racists just like the Japanese with their aging population being cared for increasingly by robots rather than low-paid immigrants [vdare.com].
Re:Racists (Score:2)
Help Farmers? (Score:2)
If these new robots do work out (Score:2)
Yeehaaaaaaaaa!!!!
Follow the money (Score:2)
I was hoping for an Asimov style robot... (Score:2)
I, for one, WELCOME our new robotic farm hands (Score:2)