Robocones

Anonymous Meoward writes "Researchers at the University of Nebraska - Lincoln have come up with robotic traffic barrels ('bollards', for our British readers) that can be repositioned by remote control, thus minimizing a road worker's time in harm's way. Apparently, the barrels can be grouped and positioned by an autonomous 'shepherd' unit, that is also smart enough to also remove an errant barrel from its herd. The barrels themselves are about as intelligent as.. well, orange barrels. Okay, let's cue the more obvious jokes..." Reader zombieflesheater submitted this previous attempt to mobilize road furniture.

Uhhh...

[Paulrothrock]

I for one welcome our new robo-bollard overlords.

Flocking Road Cones

[pararox]

Personally, I'd be more interested in seeing the development of flocking road cones [halfbakery.com]. But that's just me :)

-pararox-

Watch out for...

[Anonymous Coward]

vicious Gangs of "Keep Left" signs!

EU legislation to follow?

[NevDull]

Will there be a requirement for half the barrels to be standing around doing nothing, as per union rules?

If they're deployed in France, how long until they go on strike?

Important feature?

[Mononoke]

Have they worked out a way to have one cone doing its job while 5 other cones gather around and watch?

Re:Avoiding Cars...

[Dr Caleb]

And what happens when you stop in the closed lane - then they suddenly have you surrounded because some worker has a really twisted sense of humour? :)

"shepherd unit"

[TubeSteak]

That would suggest to me that it works wirelessly... Maybe someone will bring new meaning to the phrase "War Driving".

How long until a bunch of bored slash-nerds g out and round up enough cones to spell PENIS on the highway?

Drunk in charge of a bollard?

[Zerbey]

I can just see it now... a bunch of highly intoxicated students riding around on these and getting themsleves arrested. Sounds like fun!

"Sir, is that your bollard?"
"Um... no shir"
"Are you a student?"
"Yesh shir"
"*sigh* Put it back will you?"
"OK shir, thanksh you"

(I had carried the thing for 3 miles by this point)

Re:Self Healing Minefield

[Araneas]

Combine both. Self healing traffic cone array with a serious deterrant against not obeying the lane closure signs.

Attack of the Robo-cones!

[nlinecomputers]

What will happen when the drivers hit the cones? Will they strike back? I can just see having to avoid kamakaze attack cones.

Robots ?

[mirko]

Why use robots when TOYS [imdb.com] did it so well ?

Re:Drunk in charge of a bollard?

[troc]

I was once followed for over a mile by the police to make sure I did deposit both the cones and the shopping trolley they were in, back in their respective homes.

heh

Troc.

Next step

[boatboy]

The obvious next step now will be for college students to steal them and make robotic traffic cone dorm tables.

Correction...

[D-Cypell]

('bollards', for our British readers)

The correct terminology is 'bollocks'. Also given the nature of the text it would be more correctly expressed using 'to' rather than 'for'. Also, as the US language is obviously derivitive of true english this terminology should also be valid in the US.

So thats is...

"Bollocks to our British readers"

to which the clear and obvious response is..

"Bollocks to you too..."

Perfect!

[Tenebrious1]

Steal a few of these, set them up in the street in front of my apartment to save my parking spot. When my car approaches, a RF sensor will tell the cones to part to allow my car to slide into the spot. Fantastic!

Hi. I'm Troy McClure

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi. I'm Troy McClure. You might remember me from such highway robot movies as "Mad Max 6: The Road Is the Warrior" and "Coneroads" co-starring Dan Aykroyd.

Re:*sigh* in russia, obviously

[Anonymous Coward]

and this is my first attempt at rude slashdot responses:

YOU FAIL IT

What? No one posts...

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine a Beowulf cluster of those!

I swear!

[Nuclear Elephant]

Officer, I swear those cones jumped right out in front of me!

Bright-orange witch hats

[AtariAmarok]

"In Australia we refer to them as "cones" too. In some parts they are still known as "Witches Hats"."

They are known by this name in northern Minnesota, too. In parts of the country where deer hunting is a real big deal, there were problems with witches being shot out of the sky by accident during Halloween, which occurs during bow-hunting season. The state government forced all witches to wear bright hunter's-orange hats.

The witches got angry about this, just like the Amish who objected to having orange triangles on their buggies. In fact, in 1999, one angry witch known to most as "Bemidji Bertha" passed a curse on St. Paul. It is believed that the election of Jesse Ventura was a fulfillment of the curse.

Re:Drunk in charge of a bollard?

[Anonymous Coward]

How about the excuse, "The bollard followed me, officer! Honestly!"

Re:Correction...

[REBloomfield]

Who in the hell modded this informative?!?!?!?!?

hilarious maybe, although from reading it, the correct British term would be 'traffic cone', but that's nowhere near as funny....

Costly Little Cones

[Gettinglucky]

It is nice to see that tax payer money can go to replacing endless cones that are used for driving target practice. Maybe they can flip them over and have them deliver ice cream on real hot days to all the workers sitting beside the road.

Re:Practical or somebody's thesis?

[Trailwalker]

There is no exageration about the deadliness of hightway work site accidents. Open and closing lanes is very dangerous - there is a small number of motorists who think that flaggers are there just to annoy them.

Some observations from a former flagger.

Every female with a drooling brat in school believes that nothing should stop her from picking up little Damien and taking him home to torture the new cat.

A coworker pointed out that our signs have words on them. This confuses motorists.

Most localities seem to have a tax on turn signal usage. Therefore, most motorists never use them. If they do use them, they are going straight anyway.

Elderly people have tunnel vision. They will never see the flagger at the side of the road.

From personal observation: An 80,000 lb haulers rig will stop a motorist who runs past a flagger station. So will any large yellow machine with CAT printed on its side.

Re:*sigh* in russia, obviously

[Anonymous Coward]

In soviet russia jokes suck at you!

Re:"shepherd unit"

[MattC413]

Probably only slightly less time than it will take for the advertising industry to hire those same slash-nerds to spell out VIAGRA and thus invent a new type of mass-media advertising - robot cone hijacking marketing.

Slashdot, May 2008

[argent]

I can imagine the stories in Slashdot in a few years after someone breaks the security on these babies...

"We uploaded a modified Linux kernel to the bollards over their radio link..."

"With this patch, you can use any construction site as a Wifi access point..."

"This patch makes the bollards engage in autonomous 'wild dog' car-chasing behaviour..."

Stop this thread....

[madopal]

Voice Over: And on the road too, vicious gangs of traffic control barrels.

Film: Two vicious traffic control barrels with little legs attack a vicar.

Colonel: (coming up and stopping them) Right, right, stop it! This thread's got silly. Started off with a nice little idea about automated road barrels and fatality statistics, but now it's got silly. The spelling is atrocious for a thread too. And these robot topic icons are pretty badly made as well. And those aren't proper English bollards anyway!

In other news...

[jafiwam]

University of Nebraska graduate students reported that running up stairs was an effective way to get away from the defective traffic barrels, which chased after the students yelling "EXTERMINATE!! EXTERMINATE!" even though they original design did not call for speakers or any noise making capability in the robots.

The usual obvious jokes

[dpilot]

How about a Beowulf cluster of these?

In Russia, bollards reposition YOU!

This news makes it obvious that *BSD is dead.

keep left sign gangs already spotted?

[kaufi]

and when will we get chased by gangs of "keep left" signs?

Can't wait until somebody hacks into these...

[Warlock7]

Then there will be many more issues due to cones that start moving around the road, seemingly independantly of the road crews control.

We'll see cones lined up across all lanes of traffic and cones that just randomly start moving.

That won't cause too many problems, now will it... :D

Re:Practical or somebody's thesis?

[74nova]

The only thing that worries me is a driver getting distracted from looking at the new technology.

i agree that this might be a problem, but i think a bigger problem would be the workers driving this things around trying to play frogger with them, hehe. i would.

Re:Practical or somebody's thesis?

[Anonymous Coward]

Definitely not an epidemic, though it appears that the workers themselves cause about half of the accidents.

Of course. Have you ever spent much time with construction workers? Lets just say that most of them do not hold degrees in Rocketology.

I'm gonna havee fun ....

[tomhudson]

I'm gonna have fun playing "Frogger" with those puppies once someone figures out how to exploit them :-)

This looks like the next "helicopter bowling" waiting to happen. Not a good idea.

Re:Correction...

[straybullets]

never mine the trafic cones ... here come the robo bollards !

Re:Practical or somebody's thesis?

[trentblase]

Penalties for killing a road worker??? What's the world coming to! This along with the laws banning hunting from motor vehicles is going to ruin construction hunting season for me.

Solutions From Statistics

[SEWilco]

From the CDC (1998): Among the 492 work zone fatalities, the leading occupations were construction laborer (42%), truck driver (9%), construction trades supervisor (8%), and operating engineer (8%). The most common primary sources of injury were trucks (45%), road grading and surfacing machinery (15%), and cars (15%). Seventy-four percent of the work zone fatality victims were employed privately, the remainder by state or local governments (13% each). In 318 of the 465 vehicle and equipment-related fatalities within work zones, a worker on foot was struck by a vehicle. Victims of these events were as likely to be struck by a construction vehicle (154 fatalities) as by a passing traffic vehicle (152 fatalities). Incidents involving backing vehicles were prominent among the 154 worker-on-foot fatalities that occurred within the confines of the work zone (51%).

Executive Summary:

• Leading occupation: construction laborers 42%: Laborers should not be hired for construction tasks.
• Primary source of injury: trucks 45%: Ban trucks from construction areas.
• Employer: private employer 74%: All work should be done by state or local government workers.
• Worker on foot struck by a vehicle 68%: As these are vehicle-related, being on foot is more hazardous than being in a vehicle, thus workers should not be on foot.
  However, data is not given to distinguish between the possibilities:
  • Worker on foot struck by a vehicle, worker on foot dies.
  • Worker on foot struck by a vehicle, worker in vehicle dies.
  • Worker on foot struck by a vehicle, non-worker in vehicle dies.
• Workers as likely to be struck by construction vehicle as by a passing traffic vehicle: Either all vehicles should be banned or all vehicles should be construction or traffic vehicles.
• Backing vehicles 51%: A vehicle can go either forward or backward, so there is a 50% chance of either. The additional 1% is insignificant.
• Worker on foot struck by another worker on foot: No data.
• Worker on foot striking another worker on foot: No data.

Construction Zone Safety Solutions Are Obvious:

1. Do not hire laborers.
2. Prohibit trucks.
3. Require State or Local Government Workers.
   • The numerous supply of clerks and supervisors is the obvious labor pool.
4. Workers should be in vehicles.
5. All vehicles should be passing traffic vehicles.
   • Passing traffic vehicles are slightly less dangerous than construction vehicles.
   • Workers are more dangerous than non-workers.

Thus, government clerks and supervisors should do construction work in automobiles. Non-workers are less dangerous than workers, thus the automobiles should be those of passerby. Non-workers on foot are not a problem. As eliminating backing vehicles removes 51% of the problem, workers should get in to vehicles of passerby, drive those vehicles forward while completing tasks, then return the vehicle to the non-worker who has walked through construction zone.

Re:Practical or somebody's thesis?

[SEWilco]

From personal observation: An 80,000 lb haulers rig will stop a motorist who runs past a flagger station. So will any large yellow machine with CAT printed on its side.

So traffic barrels should be yellow, with CAT printed on the side, and with an 80,000 lb weight inside. Did you put that in the suggestion box?

Re:Practical or somebody's thesis?

[Anonymous Coward]

Has anyone else noticed that the abbreviation of assistant professor is "Ass Prof" on the BBC website?

in other news...

[t_allardyce]

30 people were killed today in a motorway pile-up caused by a software bug in a robotic bollard. Confused by a passing car playing gangsta-rap music the robot had begun dancing accross 3 lanes of traffic, ending up attached to the front of a mini-van.

Suprised No One Has Mentioned this Factor

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anyone find this troubling that anyone with the right access could shut down all of america's roadways in a couple minutes?

This means when the computers finally take over, they can herd us un-knowingly into easy to bomb spots, or shut down the evacuation with well placed road cones!!!!

One Word

[xaoslaad]

Daleks!!!

That's right I'm gonna get me some of these, paint em black, slap a plunger on each one, dress the 'shepherd' unit up as Davro's, get the mad crazy long scarf out, take a hit of acid, and I'm in my own personal Dr. Who episode baby!!!

Re:Next step

[mrogers]

Dear flatmates,
PLEASE remember to SHUT THE BACK DOOR before you go out, the table escaped AGAIN today and was halfway home before I caught it.
Thanx,
Vikki