The world’s loneliest robot will be celebrated with a very unusual choir. See video.
“One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind”. Most people know this quote, which was broadcast to the whole world when astronaut Neil Armstrong took the very first steps on the moon back in 1969.
Since then, humanity has not just taken a small step, but a giant leap both when it comes to technology and space travel. Soon we will have both self-driving and flying cars, and we have also taken in a new planet – Mars.
It is now admittedly a long way from humans leaving their own footprints on the red planet, but we are there via a very lonely robot.
The Curiosity Rover is a kind of self-driving and very advanced car, but the similarities with those that roll around the earth stop there. It is 2.9 meters long and 2.2 meters wide, has six wheels and a lot of technology and measuring equipment.
The curious robot was the fourth and by far the most advanced rover to land on Mars, and its mission is to carry out geological measurements, investigate the climate and map the landscape. It has done that for 10 years on 5 August.
To make up for the fact that it is the loneliest robot in the universe, the exceptionally wise minds that programmed Curiosity figured out that they would let the robot itself “sing” its own birthday song when it had been there for a year.
But exactly that drains energy, so since then all birthdays have been passed over in silence. But now that it is 10 years old, Husqvarna has no intention of letting it pass in silence.
In the large portfolio of the Swedish company, we also find robotic mowers, which are some distant robotic colleagues of Curiosity.
So Husqvarna has developed a software update for its self-propelled lawnmowers called Automower, and this opens up something quite special.
More specifically, the update covers the three model versions 405X, 415X and 435X AWD, and in total this applies to 100,000 robotic mowers.
– We are a large group of technology geeks and engineers who work at Husqvarna, and occasionally we test new technology simply because we are passionate about it, says Björn Mannefred, Robotics Software Manager at Husqvarna.
‒ We have this alarm module on the Automower robotic lawnmower, and we started playing with it a bit to see if we could do something fun. Meanwhile, we heard about the impending birthday of the rover on Mars. And this is where the idea was born.
It was therefore to create the most special birthday song choir of all time, which at the same time also pays tribute to Husqvarna’s own robotic lawnmowers, which have indeed played a central role in the company’s success.
‒ For us, this is a way of paying tribute to the amazing engineering at NASA when we let our robotic lawnmowers celebrate a robotic colleague. Because no one should have to sing the birthday song to themselves, right? says Mannefred.
It is therefore an alarm system that now has a singing voice, and it was actually not too much of a job to program “Happy Birthday”.
– We have long built an infrastructure where various modules can be added and combined with our robotic lawnmowers to create innovative solutions for our customers. When Curiosity’s birthday began to approach, the building blocks were already in place, says Linda Lindqvist, Product Manager Robotics at Husqvarna.
– And since our robots here on Earth are so loved and are such a big part of family life, we thought we could send that love all the way into space, she adds.
Those who want their Automower to become part of the choir can do this via the Connect app, where the update is ready.
This means that the robotic mower will automatically start “singing” at 12:00, 15:00 and 18:00 on August 5, so Curiosity should feel a little less lonely out there.
And the Swedes don’t give up there. The plan is to make the Happy Birthday song permanently available to owners from the beginning of September, so that it can also celebrate other family birthdays.
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