Pretty cool effort to replace bees with robots - sorry, bees... It seems like all jobs are up for grabs.
(PoliX1 prototype bee)
While the flight mechanics have taken off, Parrish is working like a busy bee. Within the next two years, he plans to have the drones fly on autopilot, recognize edible crop flowers via a front end camera, use a sensor to know when they've pollinated a flower, and recharge automatically using solar power.
"You would just basically open up the box, they fly out and they would pollinate drop the flowering season and come back home for the next flowering season."
Officials said the drone won't just help the bees but also youth.
"It would help the technology and skills of our youth to learn how to pollinate their own vegetables and so it would be a win-win for the bees and for us," said Founder of the Conetoe Family Center Richard Joyner.
Science fiction readers (and watchers of sfnal movies and TV series) may see darker overtones in this light-hearted tale of drone apprenticeship. Consider the Netflix series Black Mirror episode Hated in the Nation, in which robotic bees play several roles.
Boy Makes Biomimetic Turtle Robot
't came out into plain view. Darkington glimpsed a slim body and six short legs of articulated dull metal.'
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'I don't have to tell you about the seven two-mile-diameter orbital mirrors that circulate around the satellite, making it habitable.'