Dodgy Bot
When I first saw the title "Dodgy Bot", my initial thought was that it was going to be able robots playing dodgeball, or at least something about dodgeball. However, I was wrong. This robot supposively is able to fly without slamming into things. A team at Cornell University built this design and a system to go along with it. This system included putting a camera on the bot for it to be able to see and avoid objects. The camera is able to do this by some mathematics and by scanning the environment. While scanning the environment it is able to determine an objects size, shape, and position so it can then safely maneuver.
Camera view by the robot.
What the article states as the positives of this robot is that is "an innovation that reduces weight and power consumption". Reducing weight and conserving power would be great, since many people now are about "going green", although there are still some problems with this. One of these would be that I believe this design is reducing too much weight. It was also stated in the article that this design crashed due to gusts of wind. Everyone nowadays are looking to create technology as small as possible, but this can't be done if this in return makes the robot dangerous. If the design is being picked up by wind gusts, I would think that it needs more weight in order to be able to hold its own against the wind. Either that or somehow weighting it down in another way, that is probably possible as well. The contrasting feature with this is that it is a flying robot and weight could also potentially make it so the robot would not be able to leave the ground depending on how strong its power source is. Although I'm sure this fix is possible because my guess would be that airplanes are much heavier than this robot design and you don't see them falling out of the sky all of the time. This would be a hazard and would make the people extremely angered. The same should be thought about for the Dodgy Bot.
My last critique would be the usual technology problems and mishaps. As said in the article, the robot crashed because of wind. From a viewers perspective, how do we know if this is true or not? I am not inferring that these people have any reason to lie, I'm sure they would be in big trouble for that, but how do we know their information is accurate? Techonology makes mistakes all the time, which is the reason we have so many technology advancements- because there is always something to be fixed or made better. What I am saying is that the information given and taken by this team at Cornell could be false. The robot could be having more maneuvering problems than we think and are giving it too much credibility by saying it is only the wind's fault. I believe people should look more into this data before putting this robot out on the market for use.
My last critique would be the usual technology problems and mishaps. As said in the article, the robot crashed because of wind. From a viewers perspective, how do we know if this is true or not? I am not inferring that these people have any reason to lie, I'm sure they would be in big trouble for that, but how do we know their information is accurate? Techonology makes mistakes all the time, which is the reason we have so many technology advancements- because there is always something to be fixed or made better. What I am saying is that the information given and taken by this team at Cornell could be false. The robot could be having more maneuvering problems than we think and are giving it too much credibility by saying it is only the wind's fault. I believe people should look more into this data before putting this robot out on the market for use.