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Blue Collar Bot Pumps Gas Update
A gas-pumping robot has been introduced in the Netherlands; the inventor is also a gas station owner. (Update: this article has been updated to include a video of the gas-pumping robot, as well as a new sf reference.)
(Gas-pumping robot in the Netherlands)
"I was on a farm and I saw a robotic arm milking a cow. If a robot can do that then why can't it fill a car tank, I thought," said developer and petrol station operator Nico van Staveren. "Drivers needn't get dirty hands or smell of petrol again."
The device consists of a robotic arm fitted with various sensors; the device first registers the car, looking it up in its database. Once the car make is known, the blue collar robot carefully opens the exterior flap, unscrews the gas cap, and extends the fuel nozzle into the tank opening.
(Gas pump robot video)
The robot would cost about $110,000 (75,000 euro); the robot works on any car that does not require a key to access the gas cap.
Readers reminded me of a perfect match for this robot - the automated Texaco station from the 1989 film Back to the Future: Part II. Remember, "You can trust your car to the system with the star."
(Automated Texaco gas station from Back to the Future: Part II)
I like service-oriented robots; I think that the blue collar robot from Harry Harrison's 1956 story The Velvet Glove would be glad to get a good job like pumping gas:
The overworked leg motor would have to cool down before he could work on it, plenty of time to skim through the newspaper. With the chronic worry of the unemployed, he snapped it open to the want ads and ran his eye down the Help Wanted - Robot column...
(Read more about blue collar bot)
Via Gas-pumping robot: what could go wrong?. Thanks to an anonymous reader who wrote in with the story tip.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 2/5/2008)
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Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
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