By Chief Robot. Filed in Water | Tags: autnomous, oil spill, sailing
Image by Cesar Harada Protei is the plural for Proteus, son of Poseidon, the god of the sea. Protei is a cool open source project aimed at creating a fleet of autonomous sailboats that help skim the surface of the water and clean up oil spills. Basically the designers have moved steering from the rear of the sailboat to the front and added a long tail that absorbs the oil. From their website: Our vision : Protei is a fleet of pollution collecting sailing drones. It is using existing technologies in an innovative design we can implement on the short term to address the crisis. We are developing a low-cost open-source oil collecting device that semi-autonomously sails upwind, intercepting oil sheens going downwind. The design of protei is meant to be hurricane-ready, self-righting, inflatable, unbreakable, cheap and easy to manufacture for immediate response. Click through for a video explaining it in more detail. If so inclined, you can donate to the next prototype on Kickstarter. Link