WEBVTT

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Hi, I'm an engineer

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and I make robots.

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Now, of course you all know
what a robot is, right?

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If you don't, you'd probably go to Google,

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and you'd ask Google what a robot is.

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So let's do that.

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We'll go to Google
and this is what we get.

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Now, you can see here there are
lots of different types of robots,

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but they're predominantly
humanoid in structure.

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And they look pretty conventional

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because they've got plastic,
they've got metal,

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they've got motors and gears and so on.

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Some of them look quite friendly,

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and you could go up
and you could hug them.

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Some of them not so friendly,

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they look like they're
straight out of "Terminator,"

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in fact they may well be
straight out of "Terminator."

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You can do lots of really cool
things with these robots --

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you can do really exciting stuff.

NOTE Paragraph

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But I'd like to look
at different kinds of robots --

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I want to make different kinds of robots.

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And I take inspiration
from the things that don't look like us,

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but look like these.

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So these are natural biological organisms

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and they do some
really cool things that we can't,

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and current robots can't either.

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They do all sorts of great things
like moving around on the floor;

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they go into our gardens
and they eat our crops;

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they climb trees;

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they go in water, they come out of water;

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they trap insects and digest them.

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So they do really interesting things.

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They live, they breathe, they die,

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they eat things from the environment.

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Our current robots don't really do that.

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Now, wouldn't it be great

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if you could use some of those
characteristics in future robots

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so that you could solve
some really interesting problems?

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I'm going to look at a couple of problems
now in the environment

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where we can use
the skills and the technologies

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derived from these animals

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and from the plants,

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and we can use them
to solve those problems.

NOTE Paragraph

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Let's have a look
at two environmental problems.

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They're both of our making --

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this is man interacting
with the environment

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and doing some rather unpleasant things.

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The first one is to do
with the pressure of population.

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Such is the pressure
of population around the world

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that agriculture and farming is required
to produce more and more crops.

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Now, to do that,

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farmers put more and more
chemicals onto the land.

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They put on fertilizers,
nitrates, pesticides --

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all sorts of things
that encourage the growth of the crops,

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but there are some negative impacts.

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One of the negative impacts is
if you put lots of fertilizer on the land,

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not all of it goes into the crops.

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Lots of it stays in the soil,

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and then when it rains,

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these chemicals go into the water table.

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And in the water table,

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then they go into streams,
into lakes, into rivers

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and into the sea.

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Now, if you put all
of these chemicals, these nitrates,

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into those kinds of environments,

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there are organisms in those environments
that will be affected by that --

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algae, for example.

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Algae loves nitrates, it loves fertilizer,

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so it will take in all these chemicals,

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and if the conditions are right,
it will mass produce.

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It will produce masses
and masses of new algae.

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That's called a bloom.

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The trouble is that
when algae reproduces like this,

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it starves the water of oxygen.

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As soon as you do that,

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the other organisms
in the water can't survive.

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So, what do we do?

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We try to produce a robot
that will eat the algae,

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consume it and make it safe.

NOTE Paragraph

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So that's the first problem.

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The second problem is also of our making,

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and it's to do with oil pollution.

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Now, oil comes out
of the engines that we use,

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the boats that we use.

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Sometimes tankers
flush their oil tanks into the sea,

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so oil is released into the sea that way.

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Wouldn't it be nice
if we could treat that in some way

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using robots that could eat the pollution
the oil fields have produced?

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So that's what we do.

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We make robots that will eat pollution.

NOTE Paragraph

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To actually make the robot,

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we take inspiration from two organisms.

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On the right there
you see the basking shark.

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The basking shark is a massive shark.

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It's noncarnivorous,
so you can swim with it,

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as you can see.

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And the basking shark opens its mouth,

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and it swims through the water,
collecting plankton.

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As it does that, it digests the food,

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and then it uses that energy
in its body to keep moving.

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So, could we make a robot like that --

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like the basking shark
that chugs through the water

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and eats up pollution?

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Well, let's see if we can do that.

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But also, we take the inspiration
from other organisms.

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I've got a picture here
of a water boatman,

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and the water boatman is really cute.

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When it's swimming in the water,

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it uses its paddle-like legs
to push itself forward.

NOTE Paragraph

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So we take those two organisms

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and we combine them together
to make a new kind of robot.

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In fact, because we're using
the water boatman as inspiration,

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and our robot sits on top of the water,

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and it rows,

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we call it the "Row-bot."

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So a Row-bot is a robot that rows.

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OK. So what does it look like?

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Here's some pictures of the Row-bot,

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and you'll see,

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it doesn't look anything like the robots
we saw right at the beginning.

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Google is wrong;
robots don't look like that,

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they look like this.

NOTE Paragraph

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So I've got the Row-bot here.

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I'll just hold it up for you.

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It gives you a sense of the scale,

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and it doesn't look
anything like the others.

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OK, so it's made out of plastic,

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and we'll have a look now
at the components

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that make up the Row-bot --

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what makes it really special.

NOTE Paragraph

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The Row-bot is made up of three parts,

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and those three parts are really
like the parts of any organism.

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It's got a brain,

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it's got a body

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and it's got a stomach.

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It needs the stomach to create the energy.

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Any Row-bot will have
those three components,

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and any organism
will have those three components,

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so let's go through them one at a time.

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It has a body,

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and its body is made out of plastic,

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and it sits on top of the water.

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And it's got flippers on the side here --

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paddles that help it move,

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just like the water boatman.

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It's got a plastic body,

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but it's got a soft rubber mouth here,

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and a mouth here --
it's got two mouths.

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Why does it have two mouths?

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One is to let the food go in

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and the other is to let the food go out.

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So you can see really
it's got a mouth and a derriere,

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or a --

NOTE Paragraph

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(Laughter)

NOTE Paragraph

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something where the stuff comes out,

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which is just like a real organism.

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So it's starting to look
like that basking shark.

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So that's the body.

NOTE Paragraph

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The second component might be the stomach.

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We need to get the energy into the robot
and we need to treat the pollution,

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so the pollution goes in,

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and it will do something.

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It's got a cell in the middle here
called a microbial fuel cell.

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I'll put this down,
and I'll lift up the fuel cell.

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Here. So instead of having batteries,

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instead of having
a conventional power system,

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it's got one of these.

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This is its stomach.

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And it really is a stomach

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because you can put energy in this side
in the form of pollution,

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and it creates electricity.

NOTE Paragraph

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So what is it?

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It's called a microbial fuel cell.

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It's a little bit
like a chemical fuel cell,

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which you might have
come across in school,

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or you might've seen in the news.

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Chemical fuel cells
take hydrogen and oxygen,

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and they can combine them together
and you get electricity.

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That's well-established technology;
it was in the Apollo space missions.

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That's from 40, 50 years ago.

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This is slightly newer.

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This is a microbial fuel cell.

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It's the same principle:

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it's got oxygen on one side,

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but instead of having
hydrogen on the other,

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it's got some soup,

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and inside that soup
there are living microbes.

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Now, if you take some organic material --

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could be some waste products, some food,

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maybe a bit of your sandwich --

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you put it in there,
the microbes will eat that food,

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and they will turn it into electricity.

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Not only that, but if you select
the right kind of microbes,

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you can use the microbial fuel cell
to treat some of the pollution.

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If you choose the right microbes,

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the microbes will eat the algae.

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If you use other kinds of microbes,

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they will eat petroleum
spirits and crude oil.

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So you can see
how this stomach could be used

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to not only treat the pollution

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but also to generate electricity
from the pollution.

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So the robot will move
through the environment,

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taking food into its stomach,

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digest the food, create electricity,

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use that electricity
to move through the environment

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and keep doing this.

NOTE Paragraph

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OK, so let's see what happens
when we run the Row-bot --

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when it does some rowing.

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Here we've got a couple of videos,

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the first thing you'll see --
hopefully you can see here

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is the mouth open.

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The front mouth and the bottom mouth open,

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and it will stay opened enough,

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then the robot will start to row forward.

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It moves through the water

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so that food goes in
as the waste products go out.

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Once it's moved enough,

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it stops and then it closes the mouth --

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slowly closes the mouths --

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and then it will sit there,

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and it will digest the food.

NOTE Paragraph

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Of course these microbial fuel cells,

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they contain microbes.

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What you really want is lots of energy

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coming out of those microbes
as quickly as possible.

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But we can't force the microbes

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and they generate a small amount
of electricity per second.

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They generate milliwatts, or microwatts.

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Let's put that into context.

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Your mobile phone for example,

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one of these modern ones,

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if you use it, it takes about one watt.

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So that's a thousand or a million times
as much energy that that uses

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compared to the microbial fuel cell.

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How can we cope with that?

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Well, when the Row-bot
has done its digestion,

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when it's taken the food in,

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it will sit there and it will wait
until it has consumed all that food.

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That could take some hours,
it could take some days.

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A typical cycle for the Row-bot
looks like this:

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you open your mouth,

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you move,

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you close your mouth

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and you sit there for a while waiting.

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Once you digest your food,

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then you can go about
doing the same thing again.

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But you know what, that looks
like a real organism, doesn't it?

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It looks like the kind of thing we do.

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Saturday night,
we go out, open our mouths,

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fill our stomachs,

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sit in front of the telly and digest.

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When we've had enough,
we do the same thing again.

NOTE Paragraph

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OK, if we're lucky with this cycle,

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at the end of the cycle
we'll have enough energy left over

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for us to be able to do something else.

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We could send a message, for example.

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We could send a message saying,

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"This is how much pollution
I've eaten recently,"

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or, "This is the kind of stuff
that I've encountered,"

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or, "This is where I am."

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That ability to send a message
saying, "This is where I am,"

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is really, really important.

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If you think about the oil slicks
that we saw before,

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or those massive algal blooms,

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what you really want to do
is put your Row-bot out there,

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and it eats up all of those pollutions,

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and then you have to go collect them.

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Why?

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Because these Row-bots at the moment,

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this Row-bot I've got here,

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it contains motors, it contains wires,

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it contains components
which themselves are not biodegradable.

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Current Row-bots contain
things like toxic batteries.

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You can't leave those in the environment,

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so you need to track them,

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and then when they've finished
their job of work,

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you need to collect them.

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That limits the number
of Row-bots you can use.

00:10:46.040 --> 00:10:47.296
If, on the other hand,

00:10:47.320 --> 00:10:50.456
you have robot a little bit
like a biological organism,

00:10:50.480 --> 00:10:52.576
when it comes to the end of its life,

00:10:52.600 --> 00:10:55.056
it dies and it degrades to nothing.

NOTE Paragraph

00:10:55.080 --> 00:10:57.416
So wouldn't it be nice if these robots,

00:10:57.440 --> 00:10:59.679
instead of being like this,
made out of plastic,

00:10:59.703 --> 00:11:01.296
were made out of other materials,

00:11:01.320 --> 00:11:03.056
which when you throw them out there,

00:11:03.080 --> 00:11:04.416
they biodegrade to nothing?

00:11:04.440 --> 00:11:06.536
That changes the way
in which we use robots.

00:11:06.560 --> 00:11:09.936
Instead of putting 10 or 100
out into the environment,

00:11:09.960 --> 00:11:11.216
having to track them,

00:11:11.240 --> 00:11:12.576
and then when they die,

00:11:12.600 --> 00:11:13.816
collect them,

00:11:13.840 --> 00:11:15.536
you could put a thousand,

00:11:15.560 --> 00:11:18.296
a million, a billion robots
into the environment.

00:11:18.320 --> 00:11:20.136
Just spread them around.

00:11:20.160 --> 00:11:23.776
You know that at the end of their lives,
they're going to degrade to nothing.

00:11:23.800 --> 00:11:25.496
You don't need to worry about them.

00:11:25.520 --> 00:11:28.136
So that changes the way
in which you think about robots

00:11:28.160 --> 00:11:29.536
and the way you deploy them.

NOTE Paragraph

00:11:29.560 --> 00:11:31.416
Then the question is: Can you do this?

00:11:31.440 --> 00:11:33.616
Well, yes, we have shown
that you can do this.

00:11:33.640 --> 00:11:35.736
You can make robots
which are biodegradable.

00:11:35.760 --> 00:11:38.616
What's really interesting
is you can use household materials

00:11:38.640 --> 00:11:40.336
to make these biodegradable robots.

00:11:40.360 --> 00:11:42.936
I'll show you some;
you might be surprised.

00:11:42.960 --> 00:11:45.856
You can make a robot out of jelly.

00:11:45.880 --> 00:11:48.656
Instead of having a motor,
which we have at the moment,

00:11:48.680 --> 00:11:51.136
you can make things
called artificial muscles.

00:11:51.160 --> 00:11:53.456
Artificial muscles are smart materials,

00:11:53.480 --> 00:11:54.936
you apply electricity to them,

00:11:54.960 --> 00:11:57.136
and they contract,
or they bend or they twist.

00:11:57.160 --> 00:11:59.376
They look like real muscles.

00:11:59.400 --> 00:12:02.400
So instead of having a motor,
you have these artificial muscles.

00:12:02.424 --> 00:12:05.256
And you can make
artificial muscles out of jelly.

00:12:05.280 --> 00:12:07.216
If you take some jelly and some salts,

00:12:07.240 --> 00:12:08.816
and do a bit of jiggery-pokery,

00:12:08.840 --> 00:12:10.616
you can make an artificial muscle.

NOTE Paragraph

00:12:10.640 --> 00:12:14.216
We've also shown you can make
the microbial fuel cell's stomach

00:12:14.240 --> 00:12:15.656
out of paper.

00:12:15.680 --> 00:12:19.160
So you could make the whole
robot out of biodegradable materials.

00:12:19.480 --> 00:12:22.360
You throw them out there,
and they degrade to nothing.

NOTE Paragraph

00:12:23.600 --> 00:12:25.456
Well, this is really, really exciting.

00:12:25.480 --> 00:12:28.671
It's going to totally change the way
in which we think about robots,

00:12:28.695 --> 00:12:30.936
but also it allows you
to be really creative

00:12:30.960 --> 00:12:34.296
in the way in which you think
about what you can do with these robots.

00:12:34.320 --> 00:12:35.576
I'll give you an example.

00:12:35.600 --> 00:12:38.176
If you can use jelly to make a robot --

00:12:38.200 --> 00:12:40.096
now, we eat jelly, right?

00:12:40.120 --> 00:12:42.616
So, why not make something like this?

00:12:42.640 --> 00:12:44.040
A robot gummy bear.

00:12:45.120 --> 00:12:47.896
Here, I've got some I prepared earlier.

00:12:47.920 --> 00:12:49.520
There we go. I've got a packet --

00:12:50.560 --> 00:12:52.440
and I've got a lemon-flavored one.

00:12:53.600 --> 00:12:56.336
I'll take this gummy bear --
he's not robotic, OK?

00:12:56.360 --> 00:12:57.576
We have to pretend.

00:12:57.600 --> 00:13:00.616
And what you do with one of these
is you put it in your mouth --

00:13:00.640 --> 00:13:01.880
the lemon's quite nice.

00:13:02.720 --> 00:13:05.625
Try not to chew it too much,
it's a robot, it may not like it.

00:13:06.840 --> 00:13:09.056
And then you swallow it.

00:13:09.080 --> 00:13:10.776
And then it goes into your stomach.

00:13:10.800 --> 00:13:14.616
And when it's inside your stomach,
it moves, it thinks, it twists, it bends,

00:13:14.640 --> 00:13:15.856
it does something.

00:13:15.880 --> 00:13:18.056
It could go further down
into your intestines,

00:13:18.080 --> 00:13:20.416
find out whether you've got
some ulcer or cancer,

00:13:20.440 --> 00:13:22.536
maybe do an injection,
something like that.

00:13:22.560 --> 00:13:25.416
You know that once
it's done its job of work,

00:13:25.440 --> 00:13:27.656
it could be consumed by your stomach,

00:13:27.680 --> 00:13:29.376
or if you don't want that,

00:13:29.400 --> 00:13:31.016
it could go straight through you,

00:13:31.040 --> 00:13:32.256
into the toilet,

00:13:32.280 --> 00:13:34.496
and be degraded safely in the environment.

00:13:34.520 --> 00:13:37.760
So this changes the way, again,
in which we think about robots.

NOTE Paragraph

00:13:38.720 --> 00:13:43.016
So, we started off looking
at robots that would eat pollution,

00:13:43.040 --> 00:13:45.696
and then we're looking
at robots which we can eat.

00:13:45.720 --> 00:13:47.376
I hope this gives you some idea

00:13:47.400 --> 00:13:49.840
of the kinds of things
we can do with future robots.

NOTE Paragraph

00:13:51.560 --> 00:13:53.456
Thank you very much for your attention.

NOTE Paragraph

00:13:53.480 --> 00:13:56.963
(Applause)