Gadgetory

robotic ocean predators have arrived to help protect marine ecosystems and chew bubblegum and they're all out of bubblegum welcome to what the future on today's show the fish hunting robot made to Cullen invasive species a satellite targets and takes down space junk for the first time and an unemployed robot gets a new job at Dodger Stadium let's jump right into the deep end where lionfish are running amok lionfish are what's known as an invasive species meaning they have few predators outside of their natural waters so when they showed up in the caribbean sea and atlantic ocean they gorged on juvenile fish with stomachs that expand up to 30 times their normal size lionfish can reduce some fish populations by as much as 90% in just five weeks lionfish need to be hunted to give the ecosystem a chance to balance itself and that's where the Guardian lf1 comes in the underwater drone was designed by robots in service of the environment to stun lionfish and suck them into a storage chamber so they can be brought to the surface and sold for food I know what you're thinking yes lionfish do have poisonous spines and yes they do have a pretty fearsome ugly mug but you can totally eat those lionfish meat is high in protein and omega-3 fatty acids and low in cholesterol and heavy metals are ESI's goal is to make the lf1 robots economically viable for fishermen so they can make a living while helping the environment more Chester Polytechnic Institute is also developing a lionfish hunting robot unlike RSES remote-controlled robot this robot will be autonomous and untethered finding and spearing lionfish without human assistance these robots could make lionfish more affordable and popular as a food source so if you see lionfish on a menu somewhere give it a try you might like it and you'll be taking some of the burden off of species that are being nets aren't just for the ocean anymore they're also being used to clean up space junk more than 300 kilometers above Earth the remove debris satellite tested its net capture technology for the first time it deployed a shoebox sized objects for target practice then fired a net at the space garbage and successfully captured it for this test the piece of space trash will fall to earth on its own and burn up during reentry in the future developers say that tethered Nets could be employed for controlled junk removal there are millions of pieces of space debris orbiting our planet posing a significant threat to spacecraft and satellites remove debris still has more technologies to test including a garbage harpoon a camera to track and monitor space junk and an experimental drag sail which will use the Earth's upper atmosphere to bring the remove debris satellite down to earth where it will burn up during reentry and avoid becoming space Johnny itself our last story for today is a story of triumph over adversity flippy the burger-flipping robot from Mesa robotics was fired from his job at Callie burger earlier this year because he was throwing off the rhythm of the kitchen we're happy to inform you that he found a new home at the chicken in tots and in Dodger Stadium since July 30th flippy has cooked up more than 10 thousand pounds of chicken tenders and tater tots serving up an average of 80 baskets of food per hour despite being fast on the fryers flippy is only employed on an experimental basis the team is gathering data and will likely have more information on flippies future with the Dodgers once the season comes to a close it's time for a question from one of our viewers Dan host asked us on Facebook why don't they just net the lionfish thanks for the question Dan most large-scale net fishing results in the capture of unwanted fish and other marine creatures also known as bycatch which does further damage to marine ecosystems the most precise way to catch only lionfish is to catch them one at a time using spears handheld nets or robots the robots can go deeper than your average human divers hence the push to make them economically viable for fishermen what makes you say WTF let us know in the comments that's all for this week thanks very much for watching I'm Jesse we're all filling in for Andy Altman we'll see you next time on what the future