Introducing This Jellyfish-Inspired Robot That’s Going to Help Clean Waterways

It might not look too jellyfish-like, but “Jellyfishbot” is more than meets the eye.

Transcript

00:00This might look like a tiny submarine scooting around the surface of the water, but it's

00:08not.

00:09This is what French designer Nicolas Carlesi calls Jellyfish Bot, and it may be cleaning

00:13up waterways near you soon.

00:15But if you're thinking to yourself, that doesn't look like a jellyfish, well it actually

00:19kind of does.

00:20The robot putters across the surface of the water, while a bag dangles behind it much

00:24like the tentacles of a jellyfish, all the while collecting whatever trash it runs over.

00:28Carlesi says he came up with the idea after watching people manually clean up dirty areas

00:32around the ports he leaves when going diving, but imagining he could make the tedious work

00:36both easier and more thorough.

00:38Which is why he also gave the jellyfish bot the ability to collect hydrocarbon on the

00:42surface of the water as well, allowing it to purge areas of floating debris, oil, and

00:47gasoline left behind by humans.

00:48The little bot clocks in at only around 28 inches by 28 inches big, which might seem

00:53small, but it allows it to get in between boats and other port side nooks and crannies.

00:58And since according to the World Wildlife Fund, around 660,000 tons of plastic end up

01:02in the Mediterranean alone every year, this tiny bot already has its work cut out for

01:07it.