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Pipe Inspection Robot [video]
21–30 of 38 posts
Re: Pipe Inspection Robot [video]
#22What happens if the battery dies or other technical issue is what I want to know
That's okay, there's a pipe inspection robot removal robot. If you're wondering how it would work, then an unsatisfactory answer is "spherical gears".
Re: Pipe Inspection Robot [video]
#23Why does it look like a sex toy
And why does this Rorschach guy keep publishing dirty pictures of my mother?
Re: Pipe Inspection Robot [video]
#24creepy and awesome
Re: Pipe Inspection Robot [video]
#25What's with this kind of "Technical Innovation" video? Synthesized voiceover, royalty-free upbeat stock music background, myriad of grammatical and factual errors, over-hypes a fairly simple device, clearly developed/produced outside of the U.S. but is targeting an English-speaking audience. I understand the "looking for funding" aspect of this, but if you can't get simple grammatical errors fixed, or honestly, if yo…
I do not think this video was made by the lab that invented this. I couldn't find where they got the video clips from, but I did find a video about an earlier iteration of a cilia-based pipe robot from the same lab: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGJXTUZbbWA I believe the spherical gear is used to move the "elephant head."
It's unclear to me if this is an offshoot from that university lab trying to get interest in commercialization of their tech or if it's a content mill setup looking to cash in on this obscure-ish Japanese research lab's robots.
I could believe either and the kind of production fits either to me.
Re: Pipe Inspection Robot [video]
#26Its definitely neat, but not sure how practical it is against traditional pressure/vacuum? The Oil Industry has a big lead in this tech, but maybe this would be useful in domestic applications like drainage?
Oil and gas use pipe "pigs" which date back to pulling a bale of hay tied to a wire through the pipe to clean things out. Apparently they made a squeeling sound and the name Pipe Pig stuck. More details on modern pigging: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigging
One of the most memorable company names I have ever heard, memorable enough that 30 years later, I still remember that their phone number is 1-800-HOT-HOGS is the New Pig Corporation. I occasionally see their products on city streets.
They make oil-spill containment barriers and cleanup equipment and until your comment, I had no idea where the name came from. Now I wonder if there's a connection...
Second most memorable, at least the phone number, is 1-800-ROBOHAND (robot end effectors). I think they are now a part of Schunk Corp.
Re: Pipe Inspection Robot [video]
#27Now that I've actually clicked it, I really want to know why this is in the top of HN. Like others have said, this is a generic, synthesized-voice video produced about something simple and not very innovative that looks like a dog toy that has been battered over years by a playful dog. Why is this on the front page?
Probably giving it the benefit of the doubt, as we're supposed to do on HN. If you watch the whole thing and get past the typical instagram spam synth voice and general weirdness, the tech actually seems pretty cool... Personally, I can't think of a better solution to the problems they're proposing to solve.
Re: Pipe Inspection Robot [video]
#28Re: Pipe Inspection Robot [video]
#29Lot of people understandably pissing on this. I did some research: Seems like Tadakuma Lab at Yamagata University in Japan have a group at their Uni helping them market their ideas to western audiences. If you dig in a little bit, it seems pretty legit, and the tech is interesting. They focus on novel mechanical movement systems for robots: https://www.researchgate.net/lab/Tadakuma-Laboratory-Riichir... // https://twitter.com/garagefolks/status/1599224023640342528
Unfortunately, I'm not sure they realize their marketing come across like spam.
Re: Pipe Inspection Robot [video]
#30Now that I've actually clicked it, I really want to know why this is in the top of HN. Like others have said, this is a generic, synthesized-voice video produced about something simple and not very innovative that looks like a dog toy that has been battered over years by a playful dog. Why is this on the front page?
We put it in the second-chance pool (https://news.ycombinator.com/pool, explained at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26998308), so it got a random placement on the lower part of HN's front page.
Perhaps we shouldn't have?
The upvotes after that are all organic though.