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"I was perfectly satisfied to write science fiction knowing that it would pay very little, that it would be seen by only a very few people."
- Isaac Asimov
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| Robot Earthworm | ||
| Autonomous swarming robots the size of earthworms, with similar earth-digging capabilities. |
It feels safe in the underground bunker, covered by many yards of dirt and gravel. Until the tiny robot earthworms come.
| It resembled no machine that Pere had ever seen, rather it looked like a mass of tiny gleaming roots: the red earth still packed between them heightened the illusion.
"How does it work?" The robot reached out - leaning very close to focus its microscopic eyepieces - and carefully pulled one of the strands free. It lay on the robot's outstretched metallic palm, eight inches long, an eighth of an inch in diameter. Seen close it was not completely flexible, but made instead of pivoted and smoothly finished segments. The robot pointed out the parts of interest. "...At the front end is a hard-edged orifice that drills a hole in the ground. Debris is carried back through the body of the machine and eliminated here: in operation it is not unlike the common earthworm. Directional apparatus here guides it, oriented by a gravimeter to locate our base. Here a power unit and here a frequency generator... "They have no metallic components ... they move very slowly... we estimate they entered the ground four years ago." |
| Technovelgy from War With The Robots,
by Harry Harrison. Published by Pyramid Books in 1962 Additional resources -
|
Elsewhere they are referred to as "plastic spaghetti."
In their operation, these robot earthworms remind me of these real-life Self-Replicating Modular Robots (really an organized swarm of segments - "pivoted and smoothly finished segments"):
(Self-Replicating Modular Robots)
See also the organic mining worm from Larry Niven's 1968 book A Gift From Earth.
Compare to the metal worms from Vandals from the Moon (1928) by Marius, the mining worm robot from Love Among the Robots (1946) by Emmett McDowell, the robot snake from Bait for the Tiger (1952) by Lee Chaytor, the mechanical cobra from Lord of Light (1967) by Roger Zelazny, the digger worm from With Friends Like These (1985) by Connie Willis and the robot snake spy from Mariposa (2009) by Greg Bear.
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from War With The Robots
More Ideas
and Technology by Harry Harrison
Tech news articles related to War With The Robots
Tech news articles related to works by Harry Harrison
Robot Earthworm-related
news articles:
- i-Snake Flexible Robot Surgeon Concept
- Meshworm Inches Toward You (Thanks, Harry Harrison)
- Israel Working On Tunnel Detection Snake Robots
- I Can't Resist Worm Robots
- Snakebot Burrows Underground, Thanks To Biomimicry Of Multiple Species
- Meshworm Soft Robot, With Peristaltic Crawling, Is Getting Better
| Pole-Dancing Stripperbot Robot |
| VaMEx Biomimetic Mars Robot Inspired By Skink |
| DIY Robotic Content Farming |
| Vero Robotic Dog With Vacuum Cleaner Feet |
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'Why, a clockwork dancer, or, better still, one that would go by electricity and never run down...'
'Maybe the individual intelligence of each Cubic pools into a group intelligence...'
'Looks like she has bought the Avatar Construction Set and put together her own...'
'Across the ground something small and metallic came, flashing in the dull sunlight of midday.'
'A broken circle with arrows pointing to a right-hand flow appeared in the chalf.'
'The object seemed melted together like wax — nothing was distinguishable.'
