Pollution is rising but so is technology! You can clean beaches with robots nowadays. Meet us here to learn more about that beach cleaning robot project.
Humans are no longer capable of cleaning the debris they create. As consequence machines are being built to clean them off. Recently a project which caught our attention revolves around a beach cleaning robot project. Let’s dive in, a bit more into the topic through the article.
Phu Quoc, Vietnam is labeled as the dirtiest beach in the world. But, there are other dirty beaches in and around the globe. Beach littering is a common practice. People just love to leave a piece of them back at the beach each time they visit it.
Over time, the beaches become extremely polluted and the pollutants range from simple biodegradable products like straw hats, porcelain cups, glasses, mugs, dresses to non-biodegradable plastics. You can find a lot of stuff on the beach; name them and you can spot them.
Even though biodegradable waste is processed automatically inside the Earth, to our discomfort, the non-biodegradable materials aren’t. This often takes me back to a question about ‘Who is the first?’
Have you ever thought about first who’s?
The first person who built the fire?
The person who carried a piece of plastic to the beach for the first time?
Someone flew the plastic bag in the air like it was some air balloon?
So, from then on, seeing one another, imitating each others’ behavioral patterns, humans began littering the beaches.
Still, different beach cleaning methods came into practice, but none could help us much.
Of late, it has been established that the litter can never be cleaned from all the beaches around the world manually anymore. It has gone that far.
Technology is being tried next and hopefully, they will have solutions and answers better than we ever had. Have you heard of the beach cleaning robot by any chance?
Yes, it’s true, the bot is a real robot built by scientists to primarily clean beaches.
Now, that’s an incredible landmark people have reached in the history of technology, isn’t it?
What is the beach cleaning bot all about
The robot is developed by the Dutch tech start-up Tech Tics, and the beach cleaning robot can follow instructions like all of us. You just need to order it and it will pick the stuff from the beach on its own.
All you need to do is order the beach bot to search and pick the cigarette butts from the beach and place them in your trash bin for us.
Your work gets done faster, quicker, and with greater efficiency and accuracy level than those normal hands could merely achieve.
Designed and led by two entrepreneurs, Edwin Bos and Martijn Lukart, the prototype of the beach cleaning robot has made to the world of beach cleaning finally this year in July. It is in its preliminary phases and uses Microsoft’s artificial intelligence (AI) system to pick up cigarette butts from the beach, as of now.
What can the beach cleaning robot so far do
The beach cleaning robot project led to the design of BB, an 80-centimeter wide robot. It will simply not scroll the surface of the beach for cigarette butts but is smart enough to look within the sand too.
It eventually would be expanded to search for other types of wastes. The cigarette butt is the first baby step into the beach cleaning project. Microsoft mentioned the tech start-up on 19th July 2021 and introduced the prototype.
Which phase is the beach cleaning robot in
Microsoft further ascertained that the bot is in the learning process. The learning process is being carried out using Microsoft’s giant trove AI system.
It appears that right now, the beach cleaning robot is learning from humans. So using the giant Trove, Tech Tics introduced the robot to the cigarette butt first. Next, with a set of carefully chosen images, the robot was made to learn more about cigarette butts. The beach cleaning robot can pick up all forms of cigarette butts, whether small or big.
Based in Hague, Netherlands, Tech Tics experts revealed during the launch of the prototype that they have used almost 2000 cigarette butt images in the process of learning.
Built mechanics of the robot
The beach cleaning robot is made of two onboard cameras. It has two robotic arms suspending out of the body. With their help, the butts can be put into the onboard trash can. The trash collected requires being disposed of manually.
Tech Tics believes in spreading global awareness about littering alongside the project.
What else are they planning with the beach cleaning robot
The robot is not where it ends; in fact, it starts from the building of the robot.
They want your co-operation in making the robot learn more about beach cleaning.
Thus, they have built a game app. By playing it, you can feed the memory of the beach cleaning robot and make it smarter.
What can you do to help bots clean up the beach better?
- During the beach cleaning project, normal humans can interact with the robots and can make them learn faster.
- After the beach cleanup, you can still train the beach cleaning robots using the app.
- Few beach cleaning sessions have already happened and the last one of them was on 15th August, in Zandvoort Beach Bar Ahoy/Talassa.
What’s new in the beach cleaning project!
MAPP robots are also part of the beach cleaning robots and they are in news!
Their use of artificial intelligence allows them to map the area efficiently to collect litter data.
In fact, they are one step ahead of BB.
Not only do they use the mapping technology, MAPP robots can communicate with each other while hunting for litter on the shore.
Now, isn’t this the new step forward?
The beach cleaning robot project is undoubtedly the gen-next step into the future and whether it leads to the world of Wall-E is surely a test for humanity.
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A great example of technology to be used.
The era of AI and robots doesn’t imply that it should be used only for hard industry boots, hazardous environments, space and global purposes.
In the same time, think of the beach cleaning. It is not a trivial task.
Nature pollution with litter is one of the global problems, which intrinsic for human to get worse all the time. And talk all the time.
This is a significant demonstration of what we can do with a goodwill and bit help from technology.
Yes truly!! I too understand and acknowledge it. Thanks for this wonderful insight. Truly this is how it should be.
Thank you for sharing your views with us.