Fish on Wheels lets your goldfish steer their own tank
A design studio has built an Arduino-powered fish tank on wheels that is steered, albeit unknowingly, by the fish swimming inside.
If only pet fish could drive their tanks...they still probably wouldn't be able to take over the world. And now we have proof, thanks to a design company that specializes in image recognition. Studio diip has built the rather aptly named Fish on Wheels -- a little fish tank-carrying vehicle that operates, not by remote control, but by the fish swimming in said tank.
If you're looking for a reason why, the team said it's making "an attempt to liberate fish all over the world" with the world's first self-driving car for fish. We would posit that it's also something of a creative marketing attempt to demonstrate what the studio is capable of achieving. Either way, it's hard to argue with a self-driving fish-car.
The car itself was created using an Arduino-powered robot vehicle, a battery-powered Beagleboard, and a standard Webcam. The Webcam sits over the top of the tank and tracks the fish's movement using the contrast between the fish and the bottom of the tank. The position of the fish in the tank is used to send commands to the Arduino microcontroller to steer the vehicle in that direction.
"Hopefully this invention will encourage more development in enhanced pet mobility, so pet animals can travel the world more freely," the team said.
We're not entirely sure independently mobile fish is a good idea, though. Who knows what kind of mischief fish will get into? Actually, that's not a rhetorical question. What kind of mischief would fish get into?
(Source: Crave Australia)