14 DAY TRIAL // When we think robots, our minds usually start to travel down practical routes, to figure out how we can make our lives easier and richer. The Beachbot isn't that type of robot. Instead, it's made for just one thing: to draw stuff.
We don't mean to say it draws things through conventional means. Indeed, it probably wouldn't have managed anything than a slow, choppy range of motion if it had been designed with “arms.”
Instead, the robot is more along the lines of a turtle which uses three wheels to go about its business, rather than four flipper-ended legs.
And that business is to move around a beach and draw lines in the sand. Lines and streaks that eventually come together into a large picture, of sorts.
The Beachbot is on the move
The robot was created by Swiss Engineering school ETH Zurich at the behest of Disney Research, with whom they worked closely together.
The robot drags a very small rake in the sand and maneuvers it across the beach as though it were a paint brush moving across a piece of canvas.
Beachbot is capable of avoiding death by drowning by the simple expedient of never falling inside a puddle or letting itself washed up by sea waves. It does this by tracking its distance through a laser-based positioning system.
It is possible to control the Beachbot remotely, allowing you to draw whatever you want, but you'll be better off just loading a computer plan into it. Otherwise, you'll end up with squiggles that are vague and crooked at best.
Not exactly conductive to the goal of using the Beachbot to draw Disney characters on a beach in anticipation of a concert or festival, which is the whole point of its creation.
Lines can be as thin as 5 cm, but users will likely end up using bigger ones, maybe several of them in stacks, depending on how large the “drawing” is supposed to turn up.
Challenges
Besides the self-driving system (when you're not actively controlling it of course), the designers had to put a bit of effort into ensuring that the wheels of the Beachbot didn't mar the design.
They decided to go with the simple and straightforward solution for once: balloon wheels. They are large, giant things made of polyurethane and carrying a vague resemblance to skateboard wheels.
Unfortunately, the Beachbot hasn't received a launch date and might not actually make it to the market at all. Disney will probably hold it in reserve, for its own purposes.
