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Showing posts from September, 2016

Deliverybots!

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Something I put together with a little help from sketchup. At the bottom of the post is a quick analysis of how many of these vehicles it would take to take care of small package delivery and solid waste collection in a Seattle-sized city; The video below demonstrate two  modes of operation. In parallel mode wheels are oriented to pick up or drop off uniform containers.  In-line wheel configuration allows vehicles to move at speed in traffic lanes, on road margins, and in more constricted transport corridors.  The future is, in retrospect, both less surprising and curiously different than we imagine. The problem is that we cannot see beyond a lifetime spent in a world of cars, any more than or great-grandparents could see beyond a world of steam, or theirs of horses..... But we can look beyond the disadvantages of driverless cars as we now envision them (and envision simple solutions); Disadvantage #1 They scare us-- so they should be small, and not too fast. Disa