The Giant fire-fighting robot

[pendell]

Seen in the Washington Post

Firefighters had a secret weapon when Notre Dame caught fire: A robot named ‘Colossus’
The tanklike machine played a crucial role in keeping the cathedral standing, officials say.

...
Jean-Claude Gallet, the commander, had a backup plan: Colossus, a 1,100-pound tanklike robot with the ability to venture into danger zones where conditions would quickly kill a person.

Using a motorized water cannon capable of firing more than 660 gallons per minute, Colossus took aim at the stone walls of the ancient cathedral and began spraying. In an interview with the Times of London, Gallet credited the firefighting robot with lowering temperatures inside the glass-filled nave and saving the lives of its human counterparts as an even greater disaster loomed.
...

The machine’s heroic role in defense of Notre Dame may be remembered as the beginning of a new era of robotic firefighting. Over the last decade or so, experts say, various countries and organizations have begun developing machines that fight fires and gather information, potentially offering a sophisticated new tool in a fire department’s arsenal. The machines keep people out of harm’s way and provide an alternative to the age-old practice of hauling a heavy, unwieldy fire hose into a cluttered building.

So giant robots fighting fires. Did I wake up in an anime or something?

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

Do note that steel is roughly 10 times more dense than water or meat. A meat creature weighing half a ton is the size of a cow. A robot of that weight, even including open space, is closer to the size of a man. Or imagine a small city car and remove (not fill up, take off) all the passenger space, that works too.

But yeah, cool, certainly better than most remote controlled toys.

[Tvtyrant]

I mean it is actually pretty compact, like one of those drone lawnmowers with a water cannon attached. It certainly brings to mind the Engineer's Sentry Turret from TFII.

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[Kato]

Well, it's obvious why you would want to have a robot instead of men at risk when walking into a burning building.. Sadly most robots still have big problems with stairs which is often an issue but I guess not in Notre Dame. So good on them, and a good chance to Showcase ist abilities.

But... that tiny thing weighs half a ton? How? Did they fill it with lead to make it heavier?
(Also, am I just old or do other people also think of Johnny 5 whenever they see a robot with such a 'face'?)

[Aeson]

But... that tiny thing weighs half a ton? How? Did they fill it with lead to make it heavier?

Most metals are quite dense, and if you do not have a reason to include the voluminous internal cavities required for internal passenger and cargo compartments then something that weighs as much as a car can be quite a bit smaller than one. The density of steel, for example, is about 800 g/cm³ (29 lbs/in³), and so a cube of steel 25cm (~10") on edge weighs about half a metric ton (~500 kg or ~1100 lbs); this is roughly a third as much as an average compact car (~1.5 tons) or not quite three times as much as an average motorcycle (~400 pounds). If you were to create a mold of yourself and then cast a solid steel statue from it, that statue would weigh roughly eight times as much as you do. That'd be in the ballpark of two thirds to three quarters of a ton for an average adult man, or one half to two thirds of a ton for an average adult woman. If you're familiar with the movie Goldfinger, the model of car that was crushed in that film had a curbweight of roughly two and a half to three short tons (5,000 to 6,000 pounds or 2,200 to 2,700 kilograms); how large did the rough cube into which it was crushed appear to be?

Additionally, one of the main ways to make a structure heat resistant is to use heavier structural elements. Heavier structural elements take longer to heat up than do lighter structural elements made of the same materials, which means that the strength of the element when exposed to high temperatures remains closer to its strength in 'normal' conditions longer, and on top of that heavier structural elements are also normally inherently stronger than lighter structural elements, which means that they have to become hotter before the material becomes weak enough for the element to fail (within certain limits; you also have the issue that heavier elements are, well, heavier, and so the structure weighs more, somewhat offsetting the greater strength of the heavier elements by requiring them to support a greater load).

[Kato]

Uhm... No, you're math is wrong. Or I'm really messing up right now.
I guess the (metric) density for steel is a typo, because it's 8.00, not 800 g/ccm. (since you also later say it's about eight times human density) But the mass of a 25x25x25 ccm cube is 125kg (about 250 pounds) and between 500 and 125 there's a big difference. The latter I'm willing to buy, the dimensions do not match but it's not a solid cube.


I kind of buy the argument more mass means more heat capacity but I'm not sure if the probably more vulnerable electronic parts are protected just by having lots of metal in the area.

[Aeson]

Uhm... No, you're math is wrong. Or I'm really messing up right now.
I guess the (metric) density for steel is a typo, because it's 8.00, not 800 g/ccm.

My error. I was working with kg/m³ and converted it to g/cm³ for posting, but it looks like when I converted it I for some reason used 10,000 rather than a million for the conversion factor between m³ and cm³.

I kind of buy the argument more mass means more heat capacity but I'm not sure if the probably more vulnerable electronic parts are protected just by having lots of metal in the area.

The electronics would most likely be protected either with a lot of insulation or by being designed and built specifically for high-temperature environments; large masses of metals would help somewhat on the insulation front, but would not be the primary protection.

[halfeye]

I mean it is actually pretty compact, like one of those drone lawnmowers with a water cannon attached. It certainly brings to mind the Engineer's Sentry Turret from TFII.

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Needs a hose, and isn't clearly connected to one.

[Rogar Demonblud]

Well no, that's a posed publicity photo. Just like pictures of infantry, really--if they're clean, it's fake. If they're working, they're a mess.

[Iruka]

Colossus in action at 0:20.

[HandofShadows]

Thanks for the vid. That bot really was very useful.

[Bohandas]

Seen in the Washington Post



So giant robots fighting fires. Did I wake up in an anime or something?

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