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African Gray Parrot Given Vehicle To Drive
This student engineer offers "uplift" robotics assistance to his pet parrot. It's an old story, but it "checks out", as fans say.
This African Gray parrot drives a vehicle around the house. Is it "uplift" to lend such creatures a hand?https://t.co/8M3KA1vgx8
— 𝐃𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐝 𝐁𝐫𝐢𝐧 🛰 (@DavidBrin) April 27, 2021
UF electrical and computer engineering master's student Andrew Gray and his pet parrot, Pepper, have been getting plenty of attention worldwide with their beak-driven "Bird Buggy". Gray created the robot for the College of Engineering's Intelligent Machines Design Laboratory course, in which students work all semester to create autonomous robots. When it's time to put the bird away, Bird Buggy is able to dock itself to a base station utilizing a web camera. The students are required to develop their own ideas and find the appropriate parts.
I like referencing Vernor Vinge's A Fire Upon the Deep, specifically his skrode, a machine designed to help a species attain its potential.
Sometimes, aliens need help in alien environments. See the martian perambulator from Between Planets by Robert Heinlein.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 4/13/2021)
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