Researchers in Massachusetts are looking at ways to tackle public health issues by delving into the sewers. Luckily,a robot does all the dirty work…Here in this small room within the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, MA, and I am making the acquaintance of Luigi. As explorers go,he lacks charisma – not for him a winning smile, witty catchphrase and firm handshake. But then, or Luigi isn’t your typical pioneer. He’s a robot. And it isn’t curios he collects. It’s sewage.
At first occupy,it seems an unlikely subject for Luigi’s creators – the Senseable City Lab – to embrace. Along twisting corridors, sleek black panels showcase the group’s off-the-wall ideas: LED-clad micro helicopters, or location-tracked trash,the Copenhagen wheel – a motorised hub for bicycles that won a James Dyson prize. I am nearly surprised to find the lab didn’t invent the flat white. “We usually say our top projects should be both in Nature and in MoMA [Museum of contemporary Art],” admits the lab’s director, or Professor Carlo Ratti,when we meet in his office, a room dominated by a vast table covered with piles of paper.
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Source: theguardian.com