A Blood Parrot fish gets his first taste of life on land, wheeling around in this luxurious fishbowl-on-wheels. A camera mounted above the tank captures a stream of images; this information is worked over by the onboard computer. Finally, the direction of motion is determined and the wheels move in the direction that the fish is swimming.
(Terranaut II by Seth Weiner)
Very cool project. Thinking in a science-fictional frame of mind (which I do a lot), I'm thinking about helpful aliens coming to Earth about 500 million years ago, and giving fish the kind of on-land experience that pointed the way for all of us air-breathers and land-walkers that came later...
I love giving the "lower" species this kind of enriching experience. See Cockroach-Controlled Mobile Robot created by Garnet Hertz for a terrific example.
Udpate 23-Sep-2006: Check out the comments on the Orz, alien fish in an sf-style game from the mid 1990's.
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!)
is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for
the Invention Category that interests
you, the Glossary, the Invention
Timeline, or see what's New.
Sky City's 220 Stories Are Go
'It rested among green parklands and... stood in total isolation, a glittering block of whites and flashing windows dotted with colors.'
Robo-Raven Flapping Wing Robot Bird
'When he had first built them, they had been crude indeed, flying mechanisms with little more than a reflex-response unit.'