Wall-E Collie

[geonni banner]

For Pete Sake! A robotic herding Dog? Owd Bob must be spinning in his grave…

Now, I’m all for science. It gave us penicillin and Velcro. But this is BOGUS! Some bunch of nerds have a machine named Rover that herds cows. They say it’s better than a herding dog.

 

Take a look:

 

 

There's lots more on my blog:

 

http://pedanticmystic.blogspot.com/2013/11/wall-e-collie.html

 

[TEC]

Pretty amazing what technology can create. I can see limited applications for such a tool.

 

Looks like it works most efficiently on smooth ground, yet I'm skeptical about how it does in snow and mud. Depending on its true speed/maneuverability (hard to determine at 4-5 times normal film rate), I think stock would have to be docile and willing. I slowed the motion to 0.25 of the published rate, and still couldn't get the cattle to move at real speed. Many farms and feedlots move stock in extremely routine ways, and such a device might work quite well there.

 

Looks top-heavy and easy to tip (see Geonni Banner's blog), but it's probably a prototype that can be tweaked as needed.

 

I'm keeping my border collie. No darn robot's taking her place. Josie might have a thing to say about that machine, and anyway, in a fair dog(?) fight she tells me she take that piece of metal and computer chips, yeah . Impossible for a 'bot to be a good chore friend. Guess you can see our biases.

 

Thanks for posting the links. Remember video of the military four legged mule-like contraption that was posted a few years ago? That was creepy too. -- TEC

[Donald McCaig]

Dear Doggers,

 

I really, really wish humans weren't so uncomfortable with animals.

 

Donald McCaig

[mum24dog]

I think stock would have to be docile and willing. I slowed the speed to 0.25 of the published rate, and still couldn't get it to appear normal. Many farms and feedlots move stock in extremely routine ways, and such a device might work quite well there.

 

The farm dog up the road just seems to walk the cows to the field and back along the lane a couple of times a day for milking. I'm pretty sure the cows could do it blindfold without her help.

 

Most farms round here at least already move stock with the aid of mechanics - they drive them with their quad bikes. A robot herder seems a bit superfluous and certainly prohibitively expensive given the options that exist.

 

Just because something can be done doesn't mean it should.

[D'Elle]

Just because something can be done doesn't mean it should.

Hear, hear.

[tucker09]

Better than a herding dog..... hmm, I'm gonna say no!

 

I highly doubt this would work on all stock more than a few times.. I am pretty sure the animals would be smart enough to figure out it is not a living creature and is incapable of doing what a herding dog could.

 

And couldn't agree more to the "just because something can be done, doesn't mean it should.." if only this world could get that sentence figured out a tad more quickly!

[Tommy Coyote]

• It was kind of amazing.

Pretty soon there will be robots for everything and humans and animals will become unnecessary.

 

They have upgraded that mule for the army and it is pretty amazing now, too. It can run really fast and do all sorts of things. But do you really need a 3 million dollar robt to do what a $100 mule can do just as well?