Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
 |
Pinta The Robot Sailboat
Pinta is a robotic sailboat; designed by scientists at Aberystwyth University, it will attempt the feat of sailing across the Atlantic ocean by wind power alone.
This October, Pintawill join a half-dozen other contenders for a robotic sailboat race across the Atlantic. The same scientists who built the Pinta also created Beagle B, a more elaborate robot sailboat. This summer, Beagle B will demonstrate the value of robotic sail boats by undertaking a dolphin count in Cardigan Bay, West Wales.
(Beagle B, robot sailboat)
“Something that can survive for two to three months completely unassisted while doing something interesting is a major challenge. If it does get there I will be seriously cheerful. It will open up all the oceans to environmental monitoring by robots,” said Mark Neal, of Aberystwyth University.
This technology (and the task) remind me of the autonomous space-going ramrobots described by Larry Niven in his 1968 story A Gift From Earth.
Ramrobots had been first visitors to all the settled worlds. The interstellar ramscoop robots, with an unrestricted fuel supply culled from interstellar hydrogen, could travel between stars at speeds approaching those of light. Long ago, the UN had sent ramrobots to nearby stars to search out habitable planets.
Update 08-Feb-2024: Consider the autonomous ship from Paradise and Iron (1930), by Miles J. Breuer.
There was no wheel, and no steersman! The usual site of the wheel and binnacle was occupied by a cabin with some instruments in it; nor could I find anywhere any signs of anything resembling steering-gear. How was the ship piloted? Who was watching the course? There wasn’t a lookout to be seen anywhere! Yet the ship had picked a tortuous course from its dock down the harbor and between the jetties...End update.
Via Times Online; thanks to Adi for passing the tip along.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 5/13/2008)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 0 )
Related News Stories - (" Vehicle ")
The Amazing Lightfoot Electric Scooter With Solar Assist
'The steel tortoise gave MacKinnon a feeling of Crusoe- like independence.' - Robert Heinlein, 1940.
Leader-Follower Autonomous Vehicle Technology
'Jason had been guiding the caravan of cars as usual...' - Gordon R. Dickson, 1954.
Inmotion Electric Unicycle In Combat
'It is about the size and shape of a kitchen stool, gyro-stabilized...' - Robert Heinlein, 1940.
Congress Considers Automatic Emergency Braking, One Hundred Years Too Late
'The greatest problem of all was the elimination of the human element of braking together with its inevitable time lag.' - Bernhard Brown, 1934.
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.
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
Current News
Tumblin' Tumbleweed Rovers To Eplore Mars
'His sensors out and working, and the whirring of the tape that sucked up sight and sound and shape and smell and form...'
Tentacled Robot Captures Space Debris
Preventing annoying space debris build-up.
Prufrock-MB2 Ready In Nashville
'It sounds to me as though you had invented a kind of metal earthworm.'
DIY Robotic Content Farming
'The chief wheeled to the master machine and pressed a button.'
Reflect Orbital Sunlight On Demand
'I don't have to tell you about the seven two-mile-diameter orbital mirrors that circulate around the satellite, making it habitable.'
The Amazing Lightfoot Electric Scooter With Solar Assist
'The steel tortoise gave MacKinnon a feeling of Crusoe- like independence.'
Fully Electric, Fully Automated Vegetable‑growing Agribots
'...then back to their work, though little enough it was on these automatic cultivators.'
Vero Robotic Dog With Vacuum Cleaner Feet
'Out of warrens in the wall, tiny robot mice darted.'
AI Operates An Excavator
'So far as I could see, the thing was without a directing Martian at all.'
US Army IBEX Exoskeleton Walks Troops Out Of Danger
'The suit stands up and starts walking, gripping me round the calves and waist, taking the bulk of my weight off my throbbing feet.'
Boy Makes Biomimetic Turtle Robot
't came out into plain view. Darkington glimpsed a slim body and six short legs of articulated dull metal.'
Elon Musk Wants Data Centers In Space
'Internally it’s made up of millions of components, but the most important ones are the thinking and memory parts of the Mind proper.'
Origin F1 Humanoid Robot's Facial Skin
'I could look down at that face of carefully molded synthetic rubber, tinted the exact shade of the doctor's living flesh.'
Grok And The City Fathers From 'Cities In Flight' By James Blish
'Chris, the City Fathers are not interested in your welfare; I suppose you know that. They're interested in only one thing: the survival of the city.'
Why Not Move A Warehouse District?
'Did you never see a moving house before?'
Will An AI Found A New Religion?
'You must decide how you will worship Me.'
