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| Robotic Sharks In Science & The Movies |
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You expect me to get in the water with what?
Spare a thought for the actors and actresses on the set of a movie in 1998. Not only were they working for one of Hollywood's most notoriously pushy and testing directors, they were also being chased, bitten and terrified in ice cold water by robotic sharks.
Things have come a long way since the lovable fake mechanical shark in the Jaws movie. Whereas that was a huge unreliable and pretty unconvincing hunk of mechanics, the creature effects used in Deep Blue Sea were very realistic.
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The designers built complete 100% life like robotic sharks. They could swim, bite, perform complex manoeuvrers and they were absolutely terrifying. Anyone who has seen the movie will easily be able to sympathise with Samuel L Jackson and the rest of the cast.
(Get the DVD and check out the special features to see more of the robot sharks used in the special effects in Deep Blue Sea).
A roboShark of a different nature
In 2003, the BBC set out to make history with a completely different sort of robotic shark. This one wasn't designed to terrify, quite the opposite in fact.
The trouble with filming sharks, or anything in the wild, is that the presence of the camera poses an unnatural invasion to the animals you're trying to film. So a special kind of robot camera was designed which looked exactly like a shark.
While it wouldn't fool movie goers, it would certainly pull the wool over the real sharks out there, allowing wildlife film makers to get closer than ever to their subject in the wild.
RoboShark was quite an achievement. It was 6 feet long and was able to capture some never-before seen footage of these amazing animals in the wild. But the little robotic shark met his match when a huge great white shark mistook him for a seal and took a huge chunk out of him. Still, roboshark was a bit easier to fix that than a camera man would have been.
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Roboshark goes for a swim
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While it wouldn't fool movie goers, it would certainly pull the wool over the real sharks out there, allowing wildlife film makers to get closer than ever to their subject in the wild.
RoboShark was quite an achievement. It was 6 feet long and was able to capture some never-before seen footage of these amazing animals in the wild. But the little robotic shark met his match when a huge great white shark mistook him for a seal and took a huge chunk out of him. Still, roboshark was a bit easier to fix that than a camera man would have been.
RoboShark 2 goes to work
A slightly different version of a robotic shark was put to good use in England in 2003. He was built to gather important information about sharks at the National Marine Aquarium in Plymouth. Again, there were some activities that remote sensing would have to do. (Sharks are very private things!)
Again the same technology was used and the completed robotic shark swan around exactly like the real thing. Even to visitors, it would take a little while before they realized they were actually looking at a robot shark. RoboShark 2 is speedier than his predecessor, swimming at an impressive 3km / hour.
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