Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot(EATR)

[Violet]

Upcoming Military Robot Could Feed on Dead Bodies - Science News | Science & Technology | Technology News - FOXNews.com

A Maryland company under contract to the Pentagon is working on a steam-powered robot that would fuel itself by gobbling up whatever organic material it can find — grass, wood, old furniture, even dead bodies.
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That "biomass" and "other organically-based energy sources" wouldn't necessarily be limited to plant material — animal and human corpses contain plenty of energy, and they'd be plentiful in a war zone.

Here's a picture from the site:


What are your thoughts on this? Is it kinda creepy or what? The appearance doesn't look that scary, but what it will do is.

[Taco-Calamitous]

What can it do, besides eat dead bodies? That's the question on my mind, anyway. Does that arm karate chop enemy soldiers and tanks to death?

But yeah. The whole "eating dead bodies" thing is a little creepy. The army goes to remove the body to give it a proper burial... only there is no body anymore... that kinda sucks. Anyhoo...

Wuv, Yer Mom

[LokentheWolf]

...He poses an interesting question, WHAT DOES IT DO? I mean, just run around and eat stuff? In which case, children beware, the government now has plans for you.

Seriously though, I'm not above using the dead to fuel my army, it'd be taticly sound. Yes it'd be kinda hard to tell the family there'd be no body and all, but if it fueled something that'd blow up the enemy why not? At least you can sleep at night knowing that your fallen loved one fueled the creature of their demise... But if it's just got that arm, that kinda sucks, or if it was something that just rolled over mines to blow up, that'd kinda suck...

My opinon in a less rambly way: It's an interesting concept, but unless this thing had a reason to eat a person to fuel it's self, I dont think I'd back it. Desecration of the dead is wrong, though demoralizing to the enemy.

[Darkwave]

Man that sounds crazy. I think that it is wrong

[Fate]

It eats dead bodies? I guess that would clear the environment, seeing as how this robot would be just like a decomposer, but still, just thinking of how machines will eat dead people is... not a pretty sight to imagine...

[Musashiden]

"Upon the EATR platform, the Pentagon could build all sorts of things — a transport, an ambulance, a communications center, even a mobile gunship."

The whole point of it is to create other useful things that don't need conventional fuels to run. It's apparently a foundation that they plan to expand on.

[Rocky]

"Upon the EATR platform, the Pentagon could build all sorts of things — a transport, an ambulance, a communications center, even a mobile gunship."

You guys called for me?

But in all seriousness I think that building something like that seems beneficial to the evolution and eventual solution to our energy crisis. Hopefully things can get worked out soon and we and start puting water in our car engines to run our cars or something like that someday. Though ideally I don't think this EATR robot won't have any effect on forwarding the energy crisis for about 30-50 years is my guess.

[Govinda]

I wonder how long they spent fiddling with the name so that the acronym would feature the word 'eat'. Otherwise, hell yeah, I'm all for incorporating recycling into war.

[Violet]

Biomass-Eating Military Robot Is a Vegetarian, Company Says - Science News | Science & Technology | Technology News - FOXNews.com


They revised the story. Now it's a "Vegetarian" robot. LOL. Who complained?

[LokentheWolf]

The people who complained were probly the familys of the people who were gonna work along side these bots. >.>; Or some random group of PETA activists who found out that the thing could eat animals.