[HN Gopher] Robots on Lake Michigan beaches to prevent drownings
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Robots on Lake Michigan beaches to prevent drownings
Author : rmason
Score : 75 points
Date : 2024-06-24 19:19 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.mlive.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.mlive.com)
| cespare wrote:
| https://archive.is/Kal3q
| akira2501 wrote:
| I'm not sure thinking of the robots as "increasing safety" is a
| useful mindset. They increase the chance of rescue. If you needed
| one in the first place, it's because you unintentionally
| neglected safety well before they deployed the robot to you.
|
| Anyways.. as an aside.. if it's just about getting flotation
| devices out to them faster, why not a "life jacket cannon"
| mounted to the beach? If you really want to make it something to
| write home about get the guy who was dropping hats on heads the
| other day to make a robot that drops life jackets on the heads of
| people flailing about in the water.
| MobileVet wrote:
| Take a page from every sports stadium in the country... instead
| of launching T-shirts, launch a foam vest of some sort. Clearly
| you have an issue with hitting someone in the head with
| something hard, but probably the bigger issue is launching
| something that isn't very dense through the air.
|
| Quad copter that flies out seems ideal.
| WheatMillington wrote:
| This is a semantic argument, but defining "safety" as
| mitigation and prevention of harm is valid.
| akira2501 wrote:
| Of course it is, which is why I said "not a useful
| _mindset_." I'm not arguing the semantics, just suggesting
| that allowing yourself to use them may alter your behavior in
| negative ways.
| MengerSponge wrote:
| If the pandemic taught us anything (which it really,
| shockingly, didn't) it's that moral hazard is less of a
| risk than Chicago School economists would have you think.
|
| Introducing mechanisms to keep people safer rarely yields
| the feared perverse behavior, so just introduce the bit of
| safety and keep a wary eye out for the perverse behavior.
| beart wrote:
| This feels a bit like blaming the victim. There are any number
| of things that can go wrong which may or may not be under your
| control. Specifically, the Great Lakes are more like seas than
| lakes. They have rip currents that can unexpectedly get you
| into trouble.
| akira2501 wrote:
| The robot brings you a flotation device. You should have one
| of those already. You should be wearing it if you're on the
| water for exactly the reason you've stated. Almost no one
| actually does this.
|
| I've lived and fished on the lake for years. It's great for
| recreation. Way too many people do so entirely unprepared and
| often drastically underestimate the impacts of alcohol out on
| a boat in the hot sun.
| WheatMillington wrote:
| Does the US have regulations around this? Here in New
| Zealand a boat must carry a life jacket for every person on
| board, and kids must wear a life jacket at all times. On
| vessels over 6 metres all people onboard must wear a life
| jacket at all times, unless the skipper has performed a
| safety assessment and advises they don't need to (e.g. on a
| ferry it's extremely unlikely anyone would have to wear a
| life jacket, but a charter fishing vessel may).
| gknoy wrote:
| > Does the US have regulations around this?
|
| I would be _very surprised_ if we did not have
| regulations about this, similar to seat belt laws. But
| the problem is probably enforcement. Nothing stops people
| from having a life vest on in port, and then taking them
| off once they are "away from the nannies" or whatever
| excuse people use when drinking.
|
| I have only been on a boat rarely, but I don't recall
| seeing any kindof police on jetskis or boats that would
| go check on whether people had safety equipment on and
| then ticket them.
| ben7799 wrote:
| The US has regulations on all of this but they are
| routinely ignored by people who can't swim but own boats.
|
| Small boat owners are required to have the life jackets
| on board but they can be hidden under the seats of a boat
| or inside a hatch and that will be OK even when you are
| inspected by the coast guard. Small children are the only
| ones required to wear their life jacket.
|
| Larger vessels have to have the life jackets but no one
| wears a life jacket. Most of these vessels the captain
| will explain where they are but the crew would be
| required to get them out in an emergency.
|
| Most of the small boat owners I've known wouldn't have
| much chance of retrieving life jackets from fastened
| compartments on their boat if it flipped and they were
| thrown from the boat.
|
| One of the worst accidents I've seen was a small
| commercial lobster boat on fire. The crew were all
| hanging off the back of the boat without their life
| jackets and had pointed the boat into the harbor. Luckily
| the coast guard was there to save the day.
| itishappy wrote:
| Federal law requires all individuals under the age of 13
| to wear a life jacket when underway. State laws vary.
| Enforcement and adherence are poor.
|
| The only place I've ever seen operators make a shtick is
| commercial boat tours. Nobody cares if you're out fishing
| or drinking with the boys.
| jacobgkau wrote:
| Yes. There's a patchwork of state laws, and there are
| federal Coast Guard requirements that cover states
| without their own laws. Generally, children have to wear
| life jackets, and there needs to be one for every adult
| on board. Depending on the state, adults may be required
| to wear them on certain types of boats or when transiting
| over certain underwater features.
| WheatMillington wrote:
| We wouldn't need seat belts if we simply didn't crash.
| shagie wrote:
| Seatbelts don't save the lives of pedestrians either.
|
| No floatation devices are required for swimming.
|
| The robots were a donation from a family that lost their
| daughter going out swimming two years ago.
|
| https://www.wndu.com/2024/06/11/water-rescue-drones-
| donated-... ST. JOSEPH, Mich. (WNDU) -
| Emily MacDonald and Kory Ernster were just 19 and 22 and on
| a family vacation when their lives were cut short at South
| Haven's South Beach on Aug. 8, 2022. Since
| then, their families have worked tirelessly for education
| and legislation related to water safety. As a
| part of these efforts, the MacDonalds and the Ernsters
| donated two E.M.I.L.Y. rescue drones on Monday afternoon to
| lifeguard crews at St. Joseph and New Buffalo beaches.
| "It's just a coincidence that it's named E.M.I.L.Y., and
| Emily was the beautiful girl that fell victim to drowning
| on that day, but it just works out to be a perfect
| tribute," said Stephen Ernster, father of Kory.
| Voloskaya wrote:
| There are many reasons why a life jacket cannon is a terrible
| idea. How do you get perfect accuracy ? People that are
| drowning can't swim anymore in many cases, they barely have
| energy to stay on the surface. So you can't be off by 10
| meters.
|
| They also won't have the energy to put the life jacket while
| already in the water. And while life jackets properly equipped
| around your torso make you float correctly, barely resting your
| arms on a life jacket is not terribly buoyant.
|
| You need to account for wind, not just to aim, but also because
| the life jacket will drift away. And as it happens strong winds
| are responsible for rip currents and waves which is very often
| what causes drownings in the first place, so wind is the
| default environment, not an edge case.
|
| Waves and surface currents have a strong chance of carrying
| away the jacket before the drowning person can get to it.
|
| A system that can be course corrected to account for all of
| those parameters seem the best, its rigid, so will provide
| buoyancy even when just holding on the device, it's also big
| enough to support more than one person, many drowning events
| involve more than one person (often someone that was initially
| trying to help end up getting themselves in trouble).
| aftbit wrote:
| How about a flying drone that drops an inflatable from a few
| meters above the struggling swimmer?
| itishappy wrote:
| How about using a cheap floating platform? One with a more
| efficient operating mode, larger payload capacity, less
| moving parts, safe failure modes...
| akadruid1 wrote:
| These exist and have been saving lives for at least 6
| years: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/article
| /lifegua...
| exe34 wrote:
| knowing my luck, they would hit their aim perfectly, and I'd
| be knocked out.
| itishappy wrote:
| T-shirts and hats don't fly too straight. Robot paddleboards
| can steer.
| marcellus23 wrote:
| This isn't really a robot, more of just a remote-controlled boat.
| Still cool and a great idea for helping people who are drowning,
| of course. But seems misleading to call it a "robot", which (to
| me at least) implies some level of autonomy and more tech than
| you'd find in toy RC cars from 30 years ago.
| MengerSponge wrote:
| Industrial "robots" often (generally?) have very little
| autonomy. It's helpful to not be constrained to the human form.
|
| What is a robot? An automated laborer.
| nine_k wrote:
| Industrial robots are autonomous: they do not require an
| operator.
|
| An RC car requires one.
| lawlessone wrote:
| i thought was just a backpack until it took off
| chankstein38 wrote:
| The price tag also seems like the people want it to be marketed
| as a robot. You could strap a motor and RC controller to a
| floatation device and waterproof it for less than a couple
| hundred dollars. Why do things that are meant for safety always
| have to be insanely priced?
| zardo wrote:
| > Why do things that are meant for safety always have to be
| insanely priced?
|
| When your product fails you may be liable for an injury or
| death.
| NegativeLatency wrote:
| You could also put the operator on a jetski directly
| RobotToaster wrote:
| Yeah, if you look at the photos it's just just an RC boat with
| some stuff strapped to the top.
| brink wrote:
| Speaking of beach safety, this reminds me that I've been meaning
| to buy one of these. https://kingiistore.com/
|
| I totally understand that not everyone wants to wear a life
| jacket all the time, me included.
| rnicholus wrote:
| Caution to anyone who clicks this link: mute your speakers
| first, or else you'll have to deal with blaring obnoxious music
| via an auto-play video that isn't visible without scrolling.
| brink wrote:
| What browser are you on that allows autoplaying video?
| mceachen wrote:
| Firefox on Windows autoplayed the music, fwiw
| cypherpunks01 wrote:
| I love this. An incredibly simple design for instant buoyancy.
| I'd think the device could be more affordable if there was
| additional competition. At $80 price-point it should include a
| small light (and/or sound) strobe that triggers for locating
| people in the dark. Gas cylinder refills are incredibly cheap
| and available everywhere. Makes a lot of sense to keep these
| around for open-water group swimming adventures, with swimmers
| of mixed strength.
| hereme888 wrote:
| Good. Finally. So much more efficient than a human on a
| paddleboard.
|
| I wonder if it a drone could complement the technology by quickly
| dropping a flotation device while this robot or a recuer arrive
| to escort them.
| CodeWriter23 wrote:
| Lifeguards on some beaches in CA use rapid-deploy personal
| water craft like a Seadoo.
| xnx wrote:
| Reach. Throw. Row^H^H^H Robot. Go.
| MengerSponge wrote:
| Throw Row Arigato Mr Roboto
|
| for saving me again...
| ben7799 wrote:
| If it's $12k _and_ requires an operator this seems more of a
| band-aid than anything. Where are the operators going to come
| from? And for a lot of places the operator + device probably pays
| for 3 lifeguards or swim instructors.
|
| Nothing is going to get better until we start trying to get out
| of the hole and improve the average person's ability to swim and
| make decisions in open water. I used to be a lifeguard and swim
| instructor and it has mostly felt like things have gotten worse
| and worse over the last 20 years. Fewer and fewer places to swim,
| more and more places just made everything a wading pool or a
| splash park to reduce liability, and after a generation of this
| there is an undersupply of people who can teach others to swim.
| Now some municipalities in my area are trying to ban swimming in
| open water. They closed all the pools to save money, it gets
| hotter and hotter and more people who can't swim go in the
| oceans/rivers/ponds/lakes to try and cool off. A lot of the
| people who never learned to swim make extremely poor decisions
| when they go into open water or use a small boat. The answer is
| not to fine them for going in the water.
|
| It's pretty frustrating to think about all this after watching
| the Olympic trials this past weekend.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| >> A lot of the people who never learned to swim make extremely
| poor decisions when they go into open water or use a small
| boat.
|
| And a great many of those poor decisions are somewhat based on
| drugs/alcohol. The kid drowning because in a rip off a popular
| beach is rare. The grown man drowning stuck under his own dock,
| even in his own pool, on a friday night is not. We shouldn't
| deprive kids of water access because grownups make poor
| decisions while high.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Just another example of the US's excessive liability culture
| that is gumming up the gears of society.
| quasse wrote:
| My alma matter (which is directly on a lake) has been
| gradually banning all unsupervised swimming for students
| because someone gets blackout drunk and drowns themself in
| the lake every year.
|
| I think it's a tragedy; I spent a lot of my formative time
| enjoying the lake and the outdoors (not to mention it being
| one of the few healthy ways to escape the stress of
| engineering school).
|
| The school is also gradually eroding all of the student run
| outdoor clubs (sailing, mountaineering) because they aren't
| directly controlled by the university bureaucratic system.
| Young adults today are having that taken away from them and
| replaced with nothing.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| There's a highly dubious serial killer theory that exists
| simply because so many young college men drown while
| drunk:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smiley_face_murder_theory
| Projectiboga wrote:
| I heard a stat once that most adult male drowning victims
| had their fly down. This points to someone very drunk
| trying to pee into a body of water at night. One should
| always pee away from open water. I recall the suggested
| distance 100 feet for pee and more for number two.
| aeternum wrote:
| What's interesting is that we may be causing much more
| loss of life with these bans than we are saving.
|
| We ban or severely restrict many physical activities then
| we wonder why childhood obesity is so high and why so
| many kids have metabolic syndrome and cardiovascular
| issues.
|
| Since the link is indirect we ignore it and a heart-
| attack is just considered bad luck.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Swimming is not the only form of cardiovascular exercise
| and open water is not the only place to swim.
| aeternum wrote:
| Of course, there are still non-banned activities but it's
| not only swimming. Cheerleading, football, skateboarding,
| even lifting are risky activities and do have some chance
| of injury.
|
| It's easy to cite the injury stats for these and use that
| as a reason to avoid, but my point is we rarely look at
| the other side. Kids' interest differs and the more
| activities we ban, the more we curtail the set of
| potential interests that get kids off the couch and
| outside.
| rich_sasha wrote:
| I once went on an organized swim with wild marine mammals. What
| struck me was how many people on that trip _could not swim_ and
| only relied on buoyancy aids and snorkels - I mean, guys, clue
| is in the activity title!
|
| To be clear, this wasn't some swimming with captive dolphins,
| we were a few hrs out of port, in the middle of nowhere, in
| deep water.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > What struck me was how many people on that trip _could not
| swim_ and only relied on buoyancy aids and snorkels
|
| I get the relationship between buoyancy aids and being unable
| to swim.
|
| But snorkels? If you can't swim, a snorkel doesn't do
| anything to help you. What a snorkel helps with is making it
| more convenient to see things that are underwater.
| rich_sasha wrote:
| A buoyancy aids doesn't necessarily keep your head above
| water on its own. With a snorkel you can float head down.
| whalesalad wrote:
| I think we just need to be ok with the fact that people will
| die. Trying to attain a zero incident or zero death policy is
| completly unrealistic.
| throwup238 wrote:
| Some of you may drown, but that is a sacrifice I am willing
| to make!
| abfan1127 wrote:
| I know its tongue in cheek, but in practical terms, there
| is negative consequences for pushing the zero drownings. To
| achieve zero drownings, we have to have zero risk. the only
| way for zero risk is to eliminate it (i.e. ban swimming).
| However, banning swimming has many unintended consequences
| (swimming is great exercise, swimming during boat use is
| important during collisions). At some point, we will
| encounter water in ways that require swim skills.
|
| Drownings are tragic, however, we can't 100% prevent things
| without severe negative consequences.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| People can swim in bodies of water without fierce
| currents.
| jpollock wrote:
| People drown in swimming pools all the time.
| Anon84 wrote:
| People drown in bathtubs all the time...
|
| There are only two obvious ways to minimize risk: teach
| people to swim or prevent people from swimming. Guess
| which one is more cost-effective?
| jpollock wrote:
| Since you can't stop them from swimming, it's teaching
| them to swim.
|
| The GP post was "stop them from going into dangerous
| areas", which is why I pointed out _swimming_pools_ would
| meet the definition of "dangerous".
| dylan604 wrote:
| Tool's AEnema is now playing in my head.
| pineaux wrote:
| Learn to swim! Learn to swim! Learn to swim!
| makeitdouble wrote:
| Luckily none of the narrative here is about zero
| drownings.
|
| Or more precisely, people will express targeting zero
| drowning, but they're not making the logical jump you're
| pointing at. The device in the article is someone
| pragmatic, lifeguard situation in most places is
| pragmatic, there would need to be a crazy shift to get
| people to agree to a more absolute stance.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > Luckily none of the narrative here is about zero
| drownings.
|
| > Or more precisely, people will express targeting zero
| drowning, but they're not making the logical jump you're
| pointing at.
|
| Um, compare this comment, left hours before yours:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40779917
|
| > Fewer and fewer places to swim, more and more places
| just made everything a wading pool or a splash park to
| reduce liability, and after a generation of this there is
| an undersupply of people who can teach others to swim.
| _Now some municipalities in my area are trying to ban
| swimming in open water._
| whalesalad wrote:
| Literally yes! We have education, signage, warnings, red
| flags, etc... and yet people still do dumb shit and get
| themselves killed. Swim at your own risk, as they say.
| bongodongobob wrote:
| In ALL of the great lakes, 45 people drowned last year. I
| have no idea what the drownings near shore was, but I mean,
| millions of people live on the borders of the Great lakes.
| 45 is pretty damn good and I think resources are better
| spent on other things.
| slug wrote:
| And how many of those are young kids ? 1 is already too
| many
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2024/s0514-vs-
| drowning.ht...
| bongodongobob wrote:
| No, 1 is inevitable no matter what you do. "Won't
| somebody think of the children" is not an argument.
| whalesalad wrote:
| Is it though? Death is an inevitability. Impossible to
| optimize the world for zero deaths. It's a fools errand.
| burningChrome wrote:
| >> Nothing is going to get better until we start trying to get
| out of the hole and improve the average person's ability to
| swim and make decisions in open water.
|
| Couldn't agree more.
|
| I remember growing up and my parents required myself and my
| brothers to take swim lessons all the way through junior
| lifesaving course which was the last course the city offered
| and you had to pass all the lower classes in order to get into
| the lifeguard class. These classes were always taught over the
| Summer and every class had 2-30 kids in it. The lifeguard class
| was slightly less around 10-15 kids, but still a large class.
|
| I remember wanting to teach my daughter how to swim. The local
| pool didn't have lessons and neither did the YMCA, so we had to
| do one of these "mall-type" lessons where some company had a
| pool in some strip mall and you had one instructor and like 3
| kids in the class. In an hour, then had maybe seven or eight
| reps of learning different techniques. I was just stunned it
| had changed so drastically. I remember being in the pool for
| almost two hours every day, every morning for my Summers,
| getting ten to fifteen minutes on each technique day after day.
| I remember riding on some rickety old school bus at 7am with a
| bunch of other kids I didn't know.
|
| I don't know if its because there is no value for cities or the
| Y to take swimming lessons on any more, or the money and
| liability is too much. Either way, kids are not prepared to
| deal with being out in the open water, either in a pool or out
| in more dangerous areas like the ocean.
| vel0city wrote:
| Using the term "robot", which gives the impression of some kind
| of automation here, is the disconnect here I think. In the end
| the operator is probably just using a remote from the beach
| side.
|
| Looking at the actual demonstration of it, it makes some sense
| to me. Maybe not not at $12k plus some kind of support contract
| with it, but it makes some sense.
|
| A couple of things to think about:
|
| One big part about trying to save someone in the water,
| especially water where you can't stand in, is "throw, don't
| go". That person out there will likely pull you under and drown
| _you_ , even if they don't mean to. This makes it so the thing
| you "throw" has a hell of a lot more range.
|
| That thing ripped through the water pretty quick to get to the
| person drowning. A lifeguard wouldn't be that fast to get out
| there. Having them quickly ready to toss in and have a
| lifeguard in a tower with good visibility get out there to a
| swimmer that just needs a stable float and help coming back in.
| Getting to a person struggling in the water _before_ they go
| under is very important especially in water that isn 't very
| clear.
|
| With how fast it was going, I bet it would also do well to help
| pull someone in that's struggling to fight a current, something
| a lifeguard would also have a hard time (sometimes nearly
| impossible) doing.
| pomian wrote:
| Dartmouth college (USA), had a requirement that you must pass a
| swimming test to receive your degree. ( Obviously - if you
| didn't know how, there were free lessons.) They have recently
| dropped that requirement! ( After more than 200 years.) Why? At
| least with the old rules, you always knew that if a person was
| a Dartmouth grad, you could push them in the water. Or, at
| least, not worry about boating with them.
| Keyframe wrote:
| In (ex) Yugoslavia as kids in kindergarten I attended, we
| were required to take swimming and skiing lessons and pass
| test. Later in the primary school same thing with
| orienteering. It was all masked as fun activities, and truth
| be told they were, but now I see the bigger picture. I'm
| still putting my kids through those as well; It's both fun
| and damn useful.
| luma wrote:
| These days, you can't really push anyone into the water
| unless you're ready to pick up the bill for whatever non-
| waterproof electronics they current have on their person.
|
| It's hard to explain to young people exactly how or why it
| was, once upon a time, perfectly acceptable to toss people
| into the nearest body of water with no explanation needed or
| offered. I think we lost something along the way :D
| chasd00 wrote:
| seems like it wouldn't be that hard to have a lifeguard spot
| someone with a laser and then a drone drop a life jacket on that
| spot. They could just use the laser until the drone has the
| coordinates of the reflection and then start swimming while the
| drone flys ahead and drops a life jacket at least somewhat close.
|
| if that doesn't pan out then pivot and sell the tech to the
| military replacing life jacket with a grenade of some sort.
| rqtwteye wrote:
| "Robot" is a little misleading for basically a remote controlled
| boat. Definitely very useful.
| ec109685 wrote:
| It seems like having real drones monitor the water and these
| robotic boats could make a difference over time.
|
| An AI lifeguard seems like a tractable problem, making it
| possible for human guards to cover a lot more area.
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