Robot Sheep Shearing

[neoprodigy]

This robot clipped around 400 fleeces between 1985 and 1993 at the University of Western Australia. The sheep was in its natural state, with no drugs or artificial means of keeping it still. In over 1000 tests with this robot, only a few sheep were seriously injured, and there were many times fewer skin cuts than human shearers inflict because the robot could react in thousandths of a second. This was research sponsored by Australian wool growers and the government. See http://www.mech.uwa.edu.au/jpt/

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[dixienut]

boy that took a heck of a time, its faster doing it by hand ,..

 

[Slappy*McFish]

I was thinking the same thing.

 

[kyryah]

Fewer skin cuts, maybe... But that sheep is gonna crap itself every time a lawn mower starts up!

Kristina

 

[Inka4040]

:lol: Seriously.

 

[looney417]

it did seem kind of slow. but was i suppose to have some other kind of response by watching this? am i suppose to have the peta reaction?

off topic: neo, i like your avator.

 

[Riiz]

That cannot be any better for the sheep over hand-shearing. It looks like a torture device first off.

 

[7itanium]

first of all.. I dont like that "a few sheep were seriously injured" lol.. maybe sounds worse than it is.. but how many would have been seriously injured by hand sheering?

secondly.. it looks like the sheep is traumatized lol


maybe a cool invention.. but I certainly think it needs a lot of work-- and I think its much more efficient to sheer by hand

 

[arcanecircle]

what is suppose to be amazing is the precision and recognition of area to trim while object is moving... also i can see with this machine, with multiple sheep sheared with only few worker hired

I have to say stretching a sheep out like that look unnatural and i do wonder if any nipple was clipped off... or any um other extremity at that...

 

[FluffynTex]

I "might" have been impressed if the robot did the shearing all by itself but it was done with a remote control which is completely pointless in my opinion, if your gonna be controlling the shears why not just shear the old fashioned way? You can hand shear 5 sheep in the time it took them to do that.