This goldfish and its steerable robot tank will destroy humanity

Students at Carnegie Mellon University have made a mobile goldfish bowl that the lucky fish can drive around by itself – and they've filmed it for posterity. The video shows a reasonably large fishtank on wheels being “driven” around by an unusually active goldfish. The Reddit thread – yup, it’s one of those – reveals that “ …

[Bronek Kozicki]

Obligatory

An evil goldfish

[macjules]

Re: Obligatory

""swim push hungry, swim push hungry" ... The Dopefish Lives!

[allthecoolshortnamesweretaken]

Re: Obligatory

All goldfish are evil...

[2460 Something]

Re: Obligatory

All goldfish are indeed evil. If they ever start on their path to world domination we are all doomed.

[Roger Kynaston]

I have a theory

The Orange Strumpet stole it's mate to dye his hair and this one is looking for him.

[Bubba Von Braun]

Re: I have a theory

No the truth finally comes out.. Its the REAL Donald.. these are the true overlords roaming the White-house one knee-jerk decision at a time. :-)

[toxicdragon]

I honestly cant decide if this is cute or terrifying, its still kind of cool to watch through.

[yoganmahew]

Missed QI much?

This was invented by a QI elf many moons ago. I know, because I saw it on Dave. Ten times. Eleven... Twelve...

edit: or did I dream that?!

[Neil Barnes]

Re: Missed QI much?

We must have the same dreammeister, because I recall it too.

---> mmm, fishies!

[Anonymous Custard]

Re: Missed QI much?

Nope, not a dream -

The people at QI call a fish that drives a tank "Alan". Alan is a goldfish in the QI office who has a mini-tank (he has a normal-sized tank too) which detects Alan's movement, and moves on wheels in the direction Alan is swimming. The tank itself was made by QI elf Alex Bell, who appears on the set to describe how it works. It was made out Lego over a few days. This design was based on that of a Dutch company called Studio Dip who made a similar, larger tank. The tank has motion sensors in each corner that detect the movement of the fish. (Forfeit: Sir)

QI seriesL episode 1

https://www.comedy.co.uk/tv/qi/episodes/12/1/

[Patched Out]

Now if ...

...they had trained the fish to negotiate an obstacle course, THAT would have been something!

[Arachnoid]

Re: Now if ...

Yea but they would never get back to the start they only have a three minuite memory

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Now if ...

"...they only have a three minuite [sic] memory"

This is not true - research has shown that goldfish can remember information related to feeding for more than three months and also learn to recognise their owners/keepers, at least in terms of associating them with feeding. Mythbusters demonstrated that a goldfish could remember its way through a maze after more than a month.

[Arachnoid]

Re: Now if ...

Ah you fell for the Bait

[captain_solo]

In a few years these mutated humanoid fish bathed in their tanks of orange Melange spice gas will gain a monopoly on intestellar travel by using their precience to guide guild highliner ships through foldspace.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course the fish is unusually active

Action = reaction.

The tank moves, the water reacts and the fish tries to counter it. Like fish need to when they have to deal with a stream or something. This is clearly shown in the beginning. And when it reaches the edge of the tank it simple decides to remain there to sit out the unusual (for the fish) water behavior.

It's a somewhat interesting development but not that impressive. I mean; you have a white surface, you stick a sensor above it and merely need to determine the location of the orange dot. By current technical standards that's not very difficult anymore.

[fidodogbreath]

A simpler solution

Put the fish back in the lake. Problem solved.

[werdsmith]

Re: A simpler solution

Terrified fish that has never seen a lake before will be swallowed by larger fish within 2 minutes, problem solved.

['s water music]

Re: A simpler solution

Terrified fish that has never seen a lake before will be swallowed by larger fish within 2 minutes, problem solved.

At least he will always have the memories

[Scott Broukell]

This news comes as no surprise to me, like that fella on the telly box says 'Modern life is Goldfish'.

<gets wet suit and leaves>

[TDog]

Boring - just another add a computer to the process claim.

Skinner was here first

http://www.military-history.org/articles/pigeon-guided-missiles.htm

That was 70 odd years ago. If only we'd persevered there would have been none of this internet of things, just lots of pigeons in high, low and every place. And you can use the legs to make a hand of glory according to Charles Stross.

[ChrB]

But but...

A goldfish, pah!

We need sharks with frikkin lasers!

[M7S]

Re: But but...

Careful what you wish for. This is presumably the Mark 1 travel machine, I'm not sure what the Mark 2 will be but I recall seeing the "Mark 3 Travel Machine" being introduced to the 4th Doctor in some underground showroom on Skaro.

(Sorry, unable to locate the clip, if anyone can assist...)

[Francis Boyle]

We should be safe

until someone tries this with an octopus.

[Colabroad]

What happens if they put two Goldfish in the tank?

One turns to the other and says "Do you know how to drive this thing?"

[Patched Out]

Re: What happens if they put two Goldfish in the tank?

More like one says to the other, "Will you just stop and ask for directions, already?!"

[Mark 85]

Re: What happens if they put two Goldfish in the tank?

Only if it's a male and female goldfish. It two males, one would ask: "When we stopping for beer?".

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: One turns to the other and says "Do you know how to drive this thing?"

That was one of my favourite daft jokes, and now they've ruined it by making it not a joke any more.

[Blue Pumpkin]

Nature vs nurture ?

It always stays in the corner ...

.. presumably trying to get the thing to go round in circles

[frank ly]

Professor Wernstrom did it better

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvRQ4d76ZV0

[Myvekk]

Minion? Is that you?

Well, at least now we know where Megamind is studying...

[Anonymous Coward]

A metaphor for Donald Trump?

My immediate thought was the whole thing was supposed to represent a metaphor for Donald Trump.

Normally it's the Pussy looking for Goldfish.

[Tim Seventh]

This goldfish and its steerable robot tank will destroy humanity

And then you watch the video

[Anonymous South African Coward]

Anybody up for doing the same for a shark + swimming pool?

This reminds me strongly of the alien spaceship visiting Earth in Star Trek : The Voyage Home.

[Aaiieeee]

Lucky fish!

Can't help feel that the motions could be smoother. Also would be cool if it had a central rotating axel so it could move in any direction with out having to turn

[Chris G]

Now if

They had fitted a deep learning neural network to the tank so that it could interact with the goldfish, they could have claimed a gpldfish powered AI. With AI in the paper everybody would be throwing research money at them.

[Hans Neeson-Bumpsadese]

Maybe it's because so much tech R&D money goes into scary war tech, but when I saw the headline I had a mental image of tank in the self-propelled gun* sense of the word. Having seen the video, I think I'll sleep sounder in my bed.

* I know, a tank and a self-propelled gun aren't the same thing, but you know what I mean

[Francis Boyle]

They did originally order a combat vehicle

but there was a mix up and that went to someone called "TheDoctor718437".

[quxinot]

Most guns are self-propelled.

Backwards a bit, usually.

[cmarihugh]

FIsh tank??

Ridiculous that those kids would spend all that time building a cool robot, then have it be ruined by a silly design flaw--especially when they just had to put a lid on the tank and fill it full.