I'd Rather Stink: A Sponge-Bathing Robot
Look around. Is everything white and sterile? Don't panic, you're in the hospital. Is everyone decked out in Haz-Mat suits? Okay, start panicking -- you're in a top secret genetic test lab. They're gonna try to grow rat penises on the backs of your knees. Anyway, this is Cody, the sponge-bathing robot that'll be washin' that ass of yours for the rest of this living nightmare.
No one wants to give a sponge bath to another person, especially if you're a nurse. It's a task that is part of the job, but no one enjoys it. A new robot named Cody could replace nurses in the future.
Cody is hacked together from a "Segway omnidirectional mobile base, two anthropomorphic arms with seven degrees of freedom and wrists equipped with 6-axis force/torque sensors. The end of the robot's right arm is fitted with a specialized 'bath mitt' and the robot gathers laser range data and images from a laser range finder and camera mounted above the robot's torso."
Granted getting a sponge bath is fairly embarrassing (particularly if you just crapped your pants before realizing you're only wearing a backless gown), but do you really wanna trust the job to a robot? If you answered "yes", congratulations, you're out of your f***ing mind. Which reminds me -- did I ever tell you about the time I broke my arm for the second time and had to get bone marrow taken out of my hip to help fuse the bones back together? When I finally came out from under the anesthesia half my pubes were shaved. WAIT A MINUTE, I DIDN'T AUTHORIZE THIS -- WHO DID THIS AND WHY DID THAT ONE DUDE NURSE JUST WINK AT ME?! That's it, put me back under -- I'm gonna get to the bottom of this.
Short video of Spongebot Deathpants in action after the jump.
Robot that gives sponge baths could put nurses out of work [dvice]
Thanks to Divo, David and Jess L., who would rather risk staph infections than ever get a robotic rub-down.
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