The robo-fish comes with a set of gills that help filter the water as it swims
Microplastics are filling our waterbodies, and it is high time that effective action is taken. Much research has been undertaken towards this end, but nothing has come to the point of being enough.
An experiment on these lines has been effected by a student, who was selected by an international panel of judges for the University of Surrey’s public competition, titled The Natural Robotics Contest. The student, named Eleanor Mackintosh, designed a robot fish that is capable of filtering micro plastics.
The robot fish design was selected by the judges’ panel with a view that it could be part of a solution to minimize plastic pollution in the waterways across the world.
Student-designed robo-fish wins contest
The robot fish designed by Mackintosh comes across as one with the size of a salmon. The fish, complete with a set of gills that help filter the water as it swims, has been made available as an open source design and has been made free to download on the contest website. That means, anyone can print this robot fish if he or she has a 3D printer!
The Natural Robotics Contest competition had been organised during the summer of 2022, and had made it possible for anyone with unique ideas for a bio-inspired robot to participate. The only condition was that the winner would be turned into a working prototype.
Plastic-dumping along waterways have long been a problem that called for some serious attention. The contest was floated owing to the magnitude of plastic dumping problem and the need to find a solution. The amount of plastic that end up in the waterways is humongous that the concern has called for intervention and remedy.
Major step in the right direction
The new robo-fish, and may its successors, could well be seen as the first measures in the right direction to help mankind find and put an end to the growing problem of plastic pollution.
Apart from Mackintosh, The Natural Robotics Contest attracted many ideas from across the globe in the form of robot bears that protected forests, crab-inspired space rovers, robotic sea urchins and more.
The winning design of the robo-fish will now be deployed around the globe in efforts towards filtering micro plastics from waterbodies. Further, a report added that, it will also be among the many pollution-combating robots that are in the works at the University of Surrey.