Swimming Robots With Diamond Saws

The tragic sinking of the Deepwater Horizon and the ongoing oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has rightly elicited public outrage. Several attempts to plug the hole have failed and with every passing day the pressure continues to grow on BP and the federal government to stop this disaster. While I believe it is inexcusable that BP does not have more effective contingency plans for such a disaster, I am still pretty impressed with what's going on down there.

The primary impediment to stopping the oil flow is that the leak is occurring a mile below the ocean's surface. That means they are operating in an environment that has about 2,000 pounds per square inch of pressure. That's the equivalent of having the weight of a car pressing down on every square inch of your body. In other words, people can't go down and fix this. Instead, we have robots. The most recent effort to fix the leak was to use remote controlled robots holding diamond saws to cut through the pipe so that a new cap could be applied. When the diamond saw-wielding robots blew it, and got their saw stuck half way through the pipe, BP rolled out their giant underwater robot scissors and finished the job. Apparently, the robots don't have the steady hands of an Armenian as the cut was a bit jagged which may jeopardize the ability of the team to effectively cap the pipe.

This is truly the most catastrophic environmental disaster in American history, but there is one helluva science experiment going on down there as a result. Hopefully, the robots of the future will learn something from the shortcomings of their underwater brethren currently toiling in the Gulf.