[HN Gopher] Oxford researchers use hedgehog crash test dummies t...
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Oxford researchers use hedgehog crash test dummies to limit
lawnmower injuries
Author : edward
Score : 32 points
Date : 2024-01-20 07:22 UTC (15 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.co.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.co.uk)
| 57FkMytWjyFu wrote:
| This is like expecting Teslas to swerve for squirrels.
| pgalvin wrote:
| A 2-tonne vehicle making a dangerous manoeuvre and risking
| human lives for a squirrel is the same as an incredibly slow-
| moving, 5-10kg piece of plastic stopping its motor, in a
| garden, to protect a species vulnerable to extinction?
|
| Not to mention, nobody wants to clean up a mangled animal from
| their garden, or spend hours getting it to a vet or rescue
| centre.
| 57FkMytWjyFu wrote:
| If you really want your hedgehogs, put your forests back.
|
| The Scots have plenty of hedgehogs they don't want.
| jiminymcmoogley wrote:
| As a hypothetical owner of both a Tesla and an autonomous
| mower, i would not want my Tesla to swerve (at least in any way
| that might endanger me or other humans) for a squirrel, whereas
| I would probably want my autonomous mower to "swerve" to avoid
| a hedgehog, if not because i like little animals then just
| because i wouldn't want to clear up entrails off of my lawn
| dylan604 wrote:
| Out of curiosity, does your autonomous mower behave as
| idiotically has a autonomous vacuum like a Roomba? For a
| vacuum, that's okay, but for something on my lawn, I'd hate
| to see what the patterns in the grass would look like.
|
| I clearly have no experience with one of these things, and
| just taking the worst of one and (most probably) improperly
| applying it to something else.
| benglish11 wrote:
| These auto mowers are so light they generally don't make
| much of a pattern in the grass at all
| dylan604 wrote:
| It's not the weight of the mower that makes the patterns.
| it's the direction of the suction, the direction of the
| rotation and cut. Sure, the wheels can leave a
| depression, but it's the cut that is important.
| anfractuosity wrote:
| Great idea, since they don't have a fight or flight reaction! I
| wonder if some kind of simple thermal camera/PIR sensor could be
| useful here.
|
| Tangentially related I'm curious if it might be possible to
| distinguish hedgehogs that come into our garden based on their
| spines (I understand their paw-prints are similar to human
| fingerprints, but recording that automatically might be
| trickier!).
| poulsbohemian wrote:
| My understanding is that hedgehogs are crepuscular, so unless
| your robot mower is running at night, I'm not sure why this is
| such a specific test case. Applaud the overall thought, as
| hedgehogs are in need of protections. According to my friends who
| have hedgehogs in their area, they really only come out in the
| day if there's a problem, IE: poor health, starvation - something
| not right.
| justincormack wrote:
| The aren't quite as rigid as that, baby hedgehogs come out in
| the day sometimes, and we had hedgehogs loudly having sex at
| 11am recently in the garden. In the summer the come out a bit
| before dusk quite regularly.
| mmsc wrote:
| Here in Poland, it's extremely common to see hedgehogs during
| the day. Unfortunately also a common sight to see them dead on
| major country roads.
| ycombinete wrote:
| " _The mower stalled, twice; kneeling, I found_
|
| _A hedgehog jammed up against the blades,_
|
| _Killed. It had been in the long grass._ "
|
| No idea how to post poetry in HN. Rest of the Larkin poem here:
| https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48423/the-mower-56d22...
| bigdict wrote:
| That's called a poem?
| temp112123 wrote:
| Yes, it's quite nice.
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