They should drop a trap with food if the dogs are still ambulatory. Avoids having to hover and make multiple trap attempts, and risk running out of power in flight. It's also easier to pick up a trap with a dog in it than trap a dog terrified of the giant buzzing thing above them. And it ensures they don't half-net a dog only to have it fall out en-route.
I'm imagining three skeptical dogs. One cautiously enters the net. The other dogs watch as the first is lifted and flown away. I wonder what the other two dogs would think then. Hopefully they'd see that anywhere else is better than where they've been stuck. And I guess drones have been dropping food so they would have at least some positive experience with drones in the past.
Though website mentions thrust-to-weight ratio of 1.7 for 47.5 kg, so it can lift up to extra 33 kg. There is also a description of a spraying system with a tank of 20 l/kg, so it seems 20 kg is the actual payload capacity.
Dropping more food and waiting for a better conditions for rescue is risky. The volcano is always changing and could suddenly obliterate that part with lava, or poisonous gas, or ashes. They could maybe use a trained dog in a cage as bait, but could be seen as animal cruelty.
And, well... The new Spanish law of animal cruelty is an incredible mess bordering religious stuff. The government want to force every owner of a dog or cat to castrate it by law. (Yes, trying to save tree dogs on film, wile planning forced sterilisation for all dogs and cats in Spain).
I could be wrong, but this is that they were saying on TV the last month.
If you are a dog owner and want to have your dog entire would be illegal because... think on the sad pups that could suffer if they would born (but, what is never alive can't suffer, phew!).
Sometimes I wonder if those people are real of robotic IA running wild doing laws without any real people at charge.
Yes, you could be wrong and you are. It's a law proposal, not a law in any way.
I also guess that it's a bit more complicated than that, but I won't make any assumptions before I read it myself instead of what a Spanish TV/newspaper can tell me as they are always super biased. I suggest you to do the same.
A law proposal can became a law so there is a really crazy lawmaker somewhere proposing it.
And after checking it, It seems that is true. The law would force the owner to sterilize all animals that could roam free or if you have animals of bot sexes living together you would be forced to sterilize all pets from one sex at least. They want to forbid to breed any pet unlike you have a permit for that. A kid with an aquarium or an insect pet must ask the government a breeding permit if wants to breed a butterfly or a stick insect? Seriously?
It seems that the robotic dogs will have finally a serious chance be adopted in mass and to make money.
Didn't public opinion swing against Elon Musk for trying to insert himself into an already on-going rescue and then called one of the men who did rescue the kids a 'pedo-guy'? That's something I'd expect from a 13 year old on xbox live.
That exactly. People were disgusted by the attention grab and the lack of respect for people risking their lives. 'I'm a billionaire, look at me!' syndrome.
This rhetoric reminds me of the cynicism that a lot of, especially, environmental activists have. There are a lot of ways to make change. If you can prove that a drone can carry a dog out of a very hazardous environment then it's useful as our environment gets universally more hazardous. You're also casting shade on raising money or publicity -- my question to you: what major problem can be solved without isolated public examples and money?
Last, I'm fairly certain calling folks naive is against the HN guidelines.
> my question to you: what major problem can be solved without isolated public examples and money
I'm pretty sure the things Bill Gates foundation does are not about isolated public examples - they evaluate proposals based on impact, measured in lives saved, and not in heart warming individual saves. Sterile stuff like providing anti-mosquito bed nets which don't make you tear up.
Right, providing a cheap mosquito bed is a little easier to go mass production with than being able to use drones as an emergency recovery vehicle. The latter requires the right motivation and the right (hopeless) risk profile. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation also absolutely does a lot of advertising and interviews which are aimed at winning hearts and minds about their work.
To contrast, I think maybe you're being a bit overly cynical. What evidence is there of that happening? Even if they did, is that such a bad thing? Can the guy not want to both save the dogs and make a cool video? They're not mutually exclusive.
I once read an article which was about how we are willing to spend thousands to save one particular dog, or one particular injured bird, instead of donating that money to "animal habitat preservation" or something similar which will save thousands of diverse animals.
And then there's the whole industrial farm-animal raising thing, where billions of animals are systematically tortured. But nobody cares, because it's not a particular animal in a particular situation that we can stand behind and do cool saving off to show our "humanity".
It's not clear that many of these efforts are good at all. A classic example is feeding stray cats. That just increases the carrying capacity so you're creating more stray cats and even more will be hungry.
Exterminate cows to prevent cow suffering? Or farm them to maximize their population?
I mean that's fair, but we're talking about airlifting some poor dogs with a cool drone, not exactly a common thing that will lead to long term problems.
Sure. Not saying this case is harmful to animal welfare, but the idea of anything that seems immediately good being actually good, even a little bit, isn't generally true.
>"...billions of animals are systematically tortured. But nobody cares..."
Many people do care, and show it in various ways, from paying extra for free-range eggs, to going vegetarian or vegan. I agree with the other commenter that you're being overly cynical.
You're right but it doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things, though.
For every vegetarian, vegan, or anyone just willing to scale down, there are hundreds who would happily consume more of that sweet subsidized meat, even if it kills them.
You may discover one day that there is no "grand scheme of things", no final day of reckoning when all of humanity is tallied up to decide once and for all if we're a Good or Bad species.
It's just individuals doing what they can with what they have.
Well, I didn't mean it as some kind of grand cosmic spiritual picture or anything. Frankly, I am not sure what made you believe that.
In any case, what I meant was that while individual efforts matter, they're dwarfed by de facto policy, formal or not. And, implicitly, that I am more than a tiny bit annoyed by people who desperately try to offset anyone's efforts just because they can. Consume, consume, consume. As being able is a justification enough in itself.
You said that efforts to relieve the plight of animals "doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things", but I disagree with you, as helping one animal is meaningful. I don't understand how you can believe that animals as a whole deserve better without also believing that each animal deserves better.
You now brought up a separate issue, which seems to be rooted in a philosophical disagreement. If you think the 'desperate consumers' are causing harm, I invite you to convince them to change their ways. As an incrementalist, I see each small improvement as virtuous.
You cannot quote me saying animal suffering doesn't matter. That's not even remotely what I said. Please don't do this.
Yes, I firmly believe my own efforts are easily offset by pretty much any of my peers who don't share my concerns. That's about 99 people out of 100, if that. I cannot seriously consider doing anything as "virtuous". Not a word I'd use unironically. We're just doing what we like. That's my take on it.
> while individual efforts matter, they're dwarfed by de facto policy, formal or not.
My point is that "individual efforts" is really the only thing that exists. Policies and other structures are emergent properties of individual efforts.
There is no change at the policy level that ultimately is not initiated by individuals doing things. A government or corporation has no independent physical embodiment. It's all made of humans making choices.
Oh, I know. But I have realized this war cannot be won for the right reasons. The vast majority of people not only have zero concern for animals we use for food, they will actively fight cultured meat and stuff like that for years and years. The war hasn't even begun!
I believe things will change due to economics. Expecting the great masses to "do the right thing" is not going to work because not everyone shares your values on this topic. Price, quality and availability is what is going to drive change for some animal species.
There's an entire episode of the HBO Chernobyl TV series dedicated to the decision to kill the animals in the area, rather than trying to rescue them. Yes, many of the animals would have been radiation hazards, or already doomed to death, simply because of their proximity to the reactor explosion and absorption/consumption of radionuclides over time, but the same can be said for the people living and working in area. The decision to destroy all of them rather than trying to work out which ones could be safely rescued saved the resources it would have taken to make the determination and do the rescues. Those resources were probably better used to mitigate the enormous hazards associated with the destroyed reactor.
In this case, there may be an argument that the resources directed towards rescuing the dogs could be better put towards mitigating the hazards of volcanic eruptions in general, but I wouldn't and won't be the one to make that call.
We would do this for anyone honestly, it’s not just dogs. That’s tough to see. My heart isn’t handling this well and I just heard about it.
I hope the net is very big, they’d have to do dry runs with the net with the food in it, get them used to going into the net for the food. The hard part is going to be (well every part is hard), but if both dogs come into the net, that’s going to be a failed attempt.
Sadly I think they may only get one dog out, unless the dogs have different sleeping patterns, grab the awake one. I have no idea, this is heart breaking.
Maybe send a huge net with 4 drones to ensure if both dogs come in, they can carry the load out.
If they pull it off, take all the free marketing you can eat.
You're right. I've been thinking how many animals, not just birds, have been killed so that I can provide the birds that come by our window with sunflower, pumpkin or some other kind of seed.
> And then there's the whole industrial farm-animal raising thing
Huge difference between a pet that has developed human companionship bonds over thousands of years and a chicken or a cow that would be extinct had it not been delicious.
What a wildly toxic reply. Are you really insinuating that people are saving poor trapped animals due to some selfish motivation? Is this how you see the world? If so, I'd rather be what you call "Naive".
It's worse. There's a whole industry on Facebook/YouTube of people who "save dogs stuck in cement" which they put into that situation, and the videos get tens of millions of views.
The company has posted to social media asking people and news media to stop trying to contact them and their employees so they can focus on preparing for the rescue.
I don't think money or fame is the motivation here.
Helicopters cannot handle the potential heat. Drones have issues with payload and control. This is an Ironman situation. Someone call Yves Rossy.
Seriously. This looks like an opportunity for one of the many jet/wingsuit contraptions that have appeared in recent years. Does anyone have a number for that guy spotted over LAX?
> but flying them at low altitude over hot lava would be a whole new risk
Also in every demonstration I've seen those things have been LOUD. The dogs are likely to not get on with that, so they will bolt, and there is not nearly enough time to try get them acclimatised to it.
That’s not how we’d use it. We’d send the guy on the damn jet pack into where the dogs are. Send the drones in, have the guy man handle the dogs into the net so there is no time wasted. Once the dogs are out, the bastard jet packs out of there lol.
What dreams are made of. I really need a happy outcome to all of this for some reason.
In Dubai last year one of the wingsuits demonstrated a standing takeoff, sat in a controlled hover, then transition to forward flight. If they can perfect the reverse, transition from forward flight back into hover, then Ironman will be real.
Just for the record, the dogs vanished the same day (just hours before) that the drones had planned to act.
It seems that have been rescued by somebody entering the lava crust at night, now chilled to 60 Celsius. They left a message in the pool claiming that the dogs are ok and signing as "the A-team".
So looks like the dogs have been rescued already by a mysterious group that calls themselves, the A-Team. Human footsteps have appeared in the rooftop where the dogs were and a giant banner was planted saying "Be strong La Palma. The dogs are fine. A-Team". No kidding!
We just imported such a dog from spain from a rescue agency to find a new owner for the dog in germany (thats the most easy part, I guess). Otherwise they are euthanized. Its a Podenco mix, the same type of dog as seen on the pictures.
I really hope they can rescue them but I fear these dogs will it not make easy to catch them with a net and even more hard to fly them out because I bet they will try to free them self.
While the situation is sad, it makes me incredibly happy there are people who worry this much about another living being.
Whenever I hear about tech helping save lives it always fills me with joy to think about all the effort that went in to building this tech, to all the people who involuntarily helped make that tech become a reality.
I think the 4minutes will be very hard. But since the limiting factor is the battery and the dog probably not cooperating, why not first fly a solar panel (to charge the drone) or an unpowered trap (to give enough time to catch the dog) to allow to rerisk the limitations…
Flying in a solar panel along with a system that can connect itself to the drone autonomously sounds very expensive (does such a system exist?). Or is the idea to put a solar panel on the drone, and then have it land and charge for a while?
Something like a big raccoon trap is probably a good idea - perhaps they’re running up against weight limits. Those traps are pretty heavy.
A deep trash can with some meat glued to the bottom would probably work, with the drone tied to something near the open top. It would fall on its side when set down, and trap the dog when lifted. Assuming there's a way to lift it quickly enough.
I suppose dropping a trap, and coming back later is a better idea, but it would use a lot of the 20kg weight budget.
Good idea. I'm not sure why drone charging stations with auto landing pads aren't a commerically sold product yet. I've seen a lot of implementations in masters theses and stuff. If your robot vaccum can do it, your drone can do it.
jetpacks may be subject to the same issue as helicopter - smoke particulate getting into the jet engines.
There though a lot of human carrying electric VTOL drone-like flying vehicles have been developed and tested in recent years - YouTube is full of such videos - and that i think would work better here, whether with human or without as it would have even better carrying capacity and fly time without human.
A dirigible requires a temperature difference between the ambient (surrounding) air and the air inside the lift bladder. Or the same temperature but different density.
The heat of the lava would create an area of lower air density which would result in a significant loss of lift as it crosses.
I guess you could compensate with a high altitude crossing, but it still sounds dangerous.
It really was. But it's possible the volcanic lake only projected a captured cell of hot air up to the crater rim. Had they flown over the prison and then directly down they might not have crashed. Though they would still be trapped.
If only Zuko had his fire fists or that of his sister Azula at that point it would have been easier.
Man Uncle Iroh is OP with the fire breath technique he teaches Zuko for the "chillers"
The gas will be fine, it'll not be flammable. German airships like Hindenburg used hydrogen because helium (that it was originally intended to use) was relatively rare and there was an export ban from the US (who were producing and holding the majority of what was available). Modern devices won't use flammable gasses.
The problem will be the heat for a different reason: changing the dynamics between the gas in the device and the atmosphere inside making buoyancy much more difficult to maintain. Also, the engines used to move them around might be susceptible to the same concerns as helicopter engines & blades.
Which makes me wonder about the feasibility of a drone with flight powered by hydrogen peroxide rather than electric motors......
Little single-person helicopters powered with 85% H2O2 and a silver catalyst cropped up as a thing back in 2010, but the company in question appears to be gone now.
Probably the reporter assumes most people consider the whole "spinny thing that keeps helicopter in air" package to be one thing. Turbine, rotor and all.
Or the reporter and editor both don't know much about helicopters, or don't consider the details of why they can't fly to be worth spending their time on.
