Robot Sheep Shearing

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/

• Category

  Science & Technology

[Fraususemil]

1. First of all it's animal abuse,

2. it's job killing,

3. AND it's ineffective.

So what the shit is that.

[IgnorantorEvil]

Regardless of ethics/efficiency, this is a pretty impressive machine.

[Cristofer Toscano]

xme siete dei coglioni

[ich du]

stress pure for animal.

[Manu Forster]

It's not that I would say machines shouldn't do that.. but this machine sucks.

[Manu Forster]

Do Androids Dream about Shearing Sheep?

The whole concept of the machine is stupid.

Why don't you think about a machine with wheels, something that will just roll over the herd... over single sheep - hold and shear them (without having to hurt them or restrain them to a complicated ineffective nightmare.)

[Dirdelius]

"Hurr durr let's pretend hand-shearing is perfect and sacred and brooks no improvement"

Just because it's not much good now, doesn't mean it's not worth doing. People objected to automating milking for the exact same reasons.

[JabberwocckyChamber]

worst part of this video is knowing my tax dollars went into making this useless machine lol sheering by hand is an art form, dont get in the way of it. Cars already ruined it for blacksmiths.

[Josh McBroom]

Robots: 0 Humans: 1

[Hakii12]

It's simpler, faster and less scary for the sheep to sheer it by hand

[Vexxus Vexxen]

Wouldnt it just be faster to hand sheer them?