Comments on: Andrew Maynard’s Suburb Eating Robot

By: zack

zack — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 18:59:32 +0000

hi my name is matthew perez i like your robot thanks.

By: greennetizen

greennetizen — Sat, 24 May 2008 02:29:17 +0000

ted with this post. When I went to Andrew’s website and read about it, it sounded quite juvenile. Maybe this would make a good cartoon for Saturday morning. Peak oil does not mean that overnight everything will decay and lay in ruin. People will conserve, carpool and look for other solutions. Biofules will substitute for a while before it becomes unsustainable. Yes, there will be hard times and we may in deed be on a decline of human civilization, but the end is not here yet and there is much we can do in the meantime.

The robot idea is just a bit too pessimistic for me.

By: Post.Domesticated

Post.Domesticated — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 20:15:38 +0000

This post is ridiculous. The suburbs may be the best place to live for the majority of the populace should our resources become tight. Outside of small towns, where else are the populations dense enough for easy camaraderie while each family still has enough land to feed themselves?

Has anyone on this site ever heard of permaculture? The idea is to use design to link the currently isolated and divided parts of life (architecture, landscapes, interiors, eating, pissing, shitting, showering, enjoying nature/community) to maximize resource regeneration and fun while minimizing effort – in a beautiful way.

An example: link up your roof to a water catchment system, link that to a simple sand filtration system (maybe with a little UV filter action), link that to your kitchen sink, link the drain in your sink to a wood-chip basin filter to take out & compost the oils & veggie bits & biodegradable soap, link the bottom of the basin to a hose that leads to your fruit tree guilds, link their fruit & veggies to your stomach & your kitchen (starts loop again), link your stomach to a dry composting toilet, link the 6 month-to-1 year old finished humanure compost to your fruit tree guild (starts loop again).

This doesn’t even include the plethora of links that actually comprise the whole interconnectedness of a site. It would take volumes of text to just add the local flora & fauna that will also be munching on your fruits & veggies and making their home in your yard and enriching your life with song, color, movement, and wonder.

With the suburbs, the problem is the solution.

For visuals and a detailed blog on suburban permaculture, please visit: http://www.suburbanpermaculture.org/

By: laszlo

laszlo — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 20:58:21 +0000

Is there poster of this available? If, so how can obtain one?

By: davidd

davidd — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 07:32:40 +0000

This is like a trendy, green Archigram.

By: roboticon

roboticon — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 18:14:34 +0000

Cool-looking robot, but obnoxious premise. The solution to the oil problem will not be “make energy more expensive so people move closer to the city”. The solution will be cheaper, cleaner, renewable energy and water in abundance. This will make suburban and rural living more popular than ever before. Instead of forcing people to live like enlightened urbanites in some odd attempt to validate our own lifestyle choice, we should find real solutions to allow for and improve as many lifestyle choices as possible… including the suburban and rural ones. Cheap solar and wind solutions, alternative fuel sources, and sustainable development practices can be applied on any scale, from urban to rural.

This attitude reminds me of the new housing project in China that is supposedly a \”solution\” for housing displaced farmers in the newly industrialized areas… a modernist housing tower! What nature-loving, land-tending farmer do you suppose will be happy living there?

By: bobbie

bobbie — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 09:55:22 +0000

I think it’s an awesome idea, these suburb eating and land restoring robots. But are there other people having a hard time reading the manual ;-) Can these robots also plant trees? Cause if not I saw another good way to do this. It’s on the website http://www.floraqueen.com and during May they plant 5 trees for every gift you buy to celebrate mother’s day. This way you make not only your own mother happy, but also Mother Nature.

By: hambargarz

hambargarz — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 23:59:08 +0000

Glad to see a fellow Australian making a contribution. I like how the robot fuels itself by performing liposuction on obese people, something Australia definitely needs!