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Permalink Reply by Jacob Cunningham on July 11, 2012 at 10:19am

My apologies. Now to continue this idea.

I'm currently on a train heading towards Chicago
, everywhere I look along the tracks there is garbage!

RedBull cans, bottles full of what I assume, urine.

These drones would need some sort of reasoning / over riding response, this way if they happen to pick up a toy that a child left behidn and a parent spots it, then a parent can claim that the debris is not garbage.

Further the drone should be a hybrid of a coanda effect / lighter than air - craft using solar fabric.

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Permalink Reply by Harry on July 12, 2012 at 8:40pm

Huh??  Drone?  That's what prisoners in the county jail are supposed to do.  The jailer says, Ok you guys will walk this rail line and pick up garbage.  Your day is done when you reach the van.  It's not cruel and it's not unusual and they get some exercise. 

If you want a drone to do something useful, then keep reading.  It's not that trivial just to stabilize one and youre looking for it to know the difference between urine filled bottles and a wayward GI Joe?  I'm not saying you cant program some intelligence into one, but baby steps first and build from there.

 

 

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Permalink Reply by Jacob Cunningham on July 13, 2012 at 11:56am

I'd also like to add the idea of building 24 hour high altitude drones fitted with carbon dioxide scrubbers to try and clean the air

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Permalink Reply by Harry on July 13, 2012 at 12:48pm

Now there's an idea.  Sounds much more effective than that 75% of the earth's surface called ocean. Keep reading, there are some very good and peaceful uses for drones out there.

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Permalink Reply by Harry on July 13, 2012 at 4:07pm

Ideas are a funny thing sometimes.  What's bizarre in one environment can make sense in another.

Keep thinking Jacob.

Read Chris' latest:

http://diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/trash-collecting-sub-drone-design

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Permalink Reply by Jacob Cunningham on July 15, 2012 at 12:55am

Yes I did come across that very statement while I read about CO2 emissions, I was inspired to think about scrubber drones after reading an email from Popular Science regarding extreme weather. 

It is sad that money determines the fate of our world. Greed. Rapacious greed. 

Anyway, I'd really like to act upon my thoughts, I just saw a quote by Einstein himself, basically the message is, people who do not do evil are more evil than those that do evil simply because they observe evil and do nothing about it. I added more words. 

Anyway, I can design aircraft for any job / purpose, I have not had the time to work on autopiloting at all yet, though I will be entering this aspect of the hobby soon enough with the purchase of our first APM2 or something even less costly though $200.00 is petty cash. 

That being said, I think it is sad that we, the Humans with supreme cognitive capabilities, determine how the rest of the life forms on this Earth will die. It is really unfair. 

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Permalink Reply by Jake Stew on July 15, 2012 at 3:25pm

Garbage collecting drones, CO2 scrubbers, and garbage scooping subs are great examples of people trying to come up with ideas for drones that don't make any sense.

All of these tasks are much better accomplished from the ground using traditional methods.

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Permalink Reply by Jacob Cunningham on July 15, 2012 at 4:17pm

Well thanks Mr. stew

still like everything else, why is it needed? A corvette isn't any more useful than a fiesta.

You could do your part by not driving but people don't do that either.
Why do we need cars, our legs are fine.

Hahaha christ why do I waste my time

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Permalink Reply by Jake Stew on July 15, 2012 at 5:09pm

Maybe I should have pointed out a few things...

CO2 is heavier than air and the vast majority of it is produced near the ground.  That really doesn't matter much as diffusion creates a pretty even distribution throughout the atmosphere.  Obviously the best place for a CO2 scrubber is on the stacks and pipes where it is produced.  From there ground and sea scrubbers would be the best places.  So a drone in the air is pretty much the worst place to try and scrub CO2.

A sub scooping up sea trash sounds like a good idea until you consider that ocean flows consolidate most of the trash into the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch".  So if you really want to get that garbage you need to go there.  One look at it should tell you that it's a job for huge sea vessels with thousand ton cargo holds and miles of nets, not a tiny battery powered toy sub.

Picking up land garbage is another task done far better and cheaper on the ground.  By the time you designed and implemented even a tiny test system you will have spent enough time and money to have picked up literally tons of garbage by hand.  Even then operating costs and maintenance will just be pissing away time and money that could easily have been spent actually collecting garbage by hand.  Even if you write off the initial investment and put aside the hundreds of factors that would doom the project, it will always be cheaper to just go pick up that trash than send a drone for it.  That's why it could never work.

If you simply wanted to do aerial surveys to find the best trash-rich locations to send ground crews... well now you have a good idea.

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Permalink Reply by Jacob Cunningham on July 15, 2012 at 5:53pm

Alright sir, you have made somevery good points.

I shall step down from my dream box

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