the orion sky

What could be much cooler than a robot that eats trees to save the environment? How about a submarine that can recover timber from underwater forests? We’ve created massive dams across the face of this Earth, and when we create dams we usually cover vast forests of trees with man-made bodies of water. Enter the tree-eating robot. Triton logging has found a way to create a profitable business logging timber long considered lost.

Sawfish: mining the forgotten forests of the sea: “Once it finds the tree, the Sawfish grabs onto the bark with its grapples, which are like giant arms. It inserts a rolled up airbag that bolts onto the tree. Compressed air inflates the airbag. The saw on the Sawfish then cuts the trunk just below the airbag and stays there as the usable part of the tree shoots up to the surface. Then it moves on to the next one. The new Sawfish is capable of cutting and floating up 50 trees per dive.”

(via Boing Boing.)