Robot Designed to Power Itself By Eating Mice

[Nytmare]

There's not much more I can write here that isn't covered by the title of the article.

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2010-01/27/robot-designed-to-power-itself-by-eating-mice


I freaking love science.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

One part "Yay!", one part "Ewwww!"

 

[Crothian]

Great now this will lead to robots powering themselves by eating humans. As if Skynet was not scarey enough!

 

[Kaodi]

I would have to consider deliberately feeding a rodent to this machine a form of animal cruelty. The fact that are called "entertainment robots" is just disturbing and kind of belays the idea that it is just supposed to be a better mouse trap.

 

[sabrinathecat]

Watch out! Baxter Stockman is on the loose!

 

[Umbran]

I would have to consider deliberately feeding a rodent to this machine a form of animal cruelty.

Feeding a live mouse, I'd have to really worry about the cruelty, yes. Given that they pitch it as "dark entertainment", I'm not holding my breath that they're doing anything nice to that mouse to shuffle it off this mortal coil.

If you're really into it, you can buy humanely killed (and frozen) mice at many pet shops. They're normally for feeding reptiles (I buy them for my snake), but I suppose you can feed them to your robot...

 

[Kaodi]

If you're really into it, you can buy humanely killed (and frozen) mice at many pet shops. They're normally for feeding reptiles (I buy them for my snake), but I suppose you can feed them to your robot...

Still seems kind of reprehensible. The snake at least is a living thing with an interest in survival, which requires food.

 

[Umbran]

Still seems kind of reprehensible. The snake at least is a living thing with an interest in survival, which requires food.

Well, perhaps. But someone who's *thinking* about is is apt to be driven towards the purchase by my moralizing, rather than away from it.

I can understand the idea of a self-powered trap if you have a real mouse problem. I think it is downright unsanitary to have to keep a surface I'm actually going to use dirty, and have mice walking on it, for the trap to work, though.

 

[Nytmare]

I'm pretty sure that the rat trap was more a tongue in cheek thought experiment than an actual product someone was planning on marketing.

 

[Janx]

it seems like a bad idea.

a. having to keep a dirty surface to attract a mouse to the trap (defeating the purpose of not having mice in the house)

b. having a dead animal decompose in your house deliberately

c. designing robots that eat living organisms for fuel sets a bad precedent

d. none of these contraptions seem robot-like, they are more like electronic traps

e. I do not care to be involved in the digestion process of biologicals, let along having to empty out the poop chute of a robot.