ROBOTS that look like snakes could be used for search and rescue operations of the future.
Daniel Barrett, a robotics engineering student from UNSW working at CSIRO this summer, is one of 72 vacation students participating in CSIRO’s Big Day In this week.
Barrett’s project, part of a CSIRO collaboration with Doshisha University in Japan, has taught him that C-3PO, Marvin the Paranoid Android and the robot from ‘Lost in Space’ wouldn’t work well in real life.
“They were developed for TV and movies to cater for what people thought a robot should be like,” he says.
“But Snakebot is modular, so it’s less likely than C-3PO to trip over rubble. And unlike Marvin, Snakebot can fix itself if it needs repairs.
“Snakebot is a currently only a computer simulation but, when fully tested, a prototype may follow.”
“They were developed for TV and movies to cater for what people thought a robot should be like,” he says.
The Big Day In, held in Sydney on 14 and 15 February, is the culmination of 2 to 3 months’ work by top students on real research projects with CSIRO experts in maths and stats, IT, materials science, manufacturing and physics.
During the two days, students from CSIRO and the Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute will present their findings and hear about science careers.
Some of the other students involved are: Simon Powys, a science/engineering student from Monash University, who will talk about his quest to help develop a biodegradable coffee cup, to stop us getting buried under a mountain of polystyrene.
Polystyrene foam cups, like many plastic products, can last forever in nature because micro-organisms can’t break them down.
Erika Davies, a science student from the University of NSW, who’s been using an inkjet printer that prints gold nanoparticles to make sensors that ‘taste’ chemicals in water.
These new sensors can detect very low levels of environmentally important organic chemicals like octane or toluene leaking from ships, for example. Nic Warren, an arts/science student from the University of Melbourne, who will explain how maths-based risk management technologies can help banks protect themselves against fraud.
Other student projects include computer modelling of tsunamis, making catamarans that drive themselves and detecting Alzheimer’s disease earlier.