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The Drones and Robots That Helped Save Notre Dame

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Re: The Drones and Robots That Helped Save Notre Dame

#22
post #9

while the Colossus looks really interesting, I think the biggest impact was the video feed. I don't have the specs, but just by quick glancing of the video, that small stream of water probably didn't help at all in this particular case. You would have to be way closer for it to be effective, or use a different pattern of water if you're trying to achieve something else (e.g. ventilation or cooling down). In any case,…

Apparently, a significant difference between American and French firefighters is that the latter prefer to fight the fire from the inside (e.g.: avoid the heat and steam to accumulate inside). Apart from the video aspect, wouldn't the Colossus' water stream help them achieve that: creating a path for them to intervene and potentially escape ?

I was just reading in Le Monde yesterday that this approach is used on historical buildings as working inward would trap the fire and essentially create a localized furnace that would damage the artifacts inside.

Re: The Drones and Robots That Helped Save Notre Dame

#23
post #6

while the Colossus looks really interesting, I think the biggest impact was the video feed. I don't have the specs, but just by quick glancing of the video, that small stream of water probably didn't help at all in this particular case. You would have to be way closer for it to be effective, or use a different pattern of water if you're trying to achieve something else (e.g. ventilation or cooling down). In any case,…

I've noticed that people have been giving a lot of credit to the fire fighters. It's clear they tried their best and risked their lives to remove the artifacts that they could. But it's also clear that everything that could burn did burn: https://images.app.goo.gl/PsAzFTwaz9rRC4Qp6 The entire roof is in ashes and there doesn't appear to be anything combustible left.

Here are some of my thoughts (from another discussion) on the efforts of the firefighters:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19673885

Re: The Drones and Robots That Helped Save Notre Dame

#25
post #9

while the Colossus looks really interesting, I think the biggest impact was the video feed. I don't have the specs, but just by quick glancing of the video, that small stream of water probably didn't help at all in this particular case. You would have to be way closer for it to be effective, or use a different pattern of water if you're trying to achieve something else (e.g. ventilation or cooling down). In any case,…

Apparently, a significant difference between American and French firefighters is that the latter prefer to fight the fire from the inside (e.g.: avoid the heat and steam to accumulate inside). Apart from the video aspect, wouldn't the Colossus' water stream help them achieve that: creating a path for them to intervene and potentially escape ?

The way it was explained in Lemonde, it's that french firefihters don't always do that. They did it to preserve the interior, but that might not be their every day strategy.

Re: The Drones and Robots That Helped Save Notre Dame

#26

Chinese technology. Designed and built in China.

Great. Now they should stop destroying their local cultural artifacts ( https://twitter.com/stevelapsl/status/1118086632450740226 ), and imprisoning people in concentration camps.

> Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: The Drones and Robots That Helped Save Notre Dame

#27
post #18

My awareness comes from a tragic event, but I still must say that the Colossus is pretty cool. I wonder if the birdlike Boston Dynamics robot could be adapted for indoor firefighting in confined spaces. (Perhaps with a flippable/rotatable 4 wheeled gimbal like the Dean Kamen iBot has, which would enable stair climbing.) https://gizmodo.com/boston-dynamics-new-robot-is-a-giant-seg...

Flying drones close to a fire seems like a counter productive idea, flight is achieved by pushing lots of air around, pushing lots of air around increases the amount of oxygen available to the fire. Edit: Oops - not flying - so this comment makes no sense. I thought you meant some of the bird-like drones we've seen.

The bird-like Boston Dynamics bots aren't flying drones, they are more like ostriches in shape, and they balance on two wheels on legs with a neck-like arm for manipulating things

Re: The Drones and Robots That Helped Save Notre Dame

#28

while the Colossus looks really interesting, I think the biggest impact was the video feed. I don't have the specs, but just by quick glancing of the video, that small stream of water probably didn't help at all in this particular case. You would have to be way closer for it to be effective, or use a different pattern of water if you're trying to achieve something else (e.g. ventilation or cooling down). In any case,…

The Colossus is "Fireproof" according to the marketing website [1]. It appears to contain Lithium batteries, so how hot do you think it can get before it stops working?

1. https://www.shark-robotics.com/en/robot/colossus/

Re: The Drones and Robots That Helped Save Notre Dame

#30
post #18

My awareness comes from a tragic event, but I still must say that the Colossus is pretty cool. I wonder if the birdlike Boston Dynamics robot could be adapted for indoor firefighting in confined spaces. (Perhaps with a flippable/rotatable 4 wheeled gimbal like the Dean Kamen iBot has, which would enable stair climbing.) https://gizmodo.com/boston-dynamics-new-robot-is-a-giant-seg...

Flying drones close to a fire seems like a counter productive idea, flight is achieved by pushing lots of air around, pushing lots of air around increases the amount of oxygen available to the fire. Edit: Oops - not flying - so this comment makes no sense. I thought you meant some of the bird-like drones we've seen.

That logic seems like a bit of a stretch to me.

Following that logic, the best way to fight a fire is to get a lot of people in the building to breathe in all the oxygen and turn it into carbon dioxide ;-)

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