Showing posts with label innovation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label innovation. Show all posts

June 16, 2025

Drone Tech Pruning Trees

Researchers at the University of Canterbury have developed a drone capable of cutting limbs off trees up to 60mm (roughly 2 inches) in width. Drone tech is really taking off. I wonder what else they can be used for?

https://www.odt.co.nz/rural-life/industry-impressed-chainsaw-drone-work

"It’s working so well now that we have got funding for commercialisation, so I expect it to be commercialised next year."

Advances in electric chainsaw technology with small electric motors and improving battery technology had assisted the drone development, he said.

September 10, 2024

FlipFarm: Innovative New Zealand Company

I had never heard of FlipFarm until I saw them profiled by Country Calendar on the TV over the weekend. They farm fresh oysters in the Marlborough Sounds, at the top of the South Island of New Zealand, and they also manufacture their clever equipment and export worldwide.

The manufacturing company: https://www.flipfarm.com

The company marketing the oysters: https://www.marlboroughoysters.co.nz/about-us/


July 18, 2017

Automobile Innovation

Here's an idea I've had concerning electric cars. This has probably been thought of before, but my version goes like this: the problem with electric cars is range. Fine for around town stuff, but between cities the electric cars run out of juice.

What about cars that run on roads with an electrical supply reticulated into the road itself. Steam trains used to have water towers for refuelling, then a trough came along placed beside the track, a scoop picks up the water and the train never has to stop. Well, how about zones on highways where there is a live rail and the car lowers a wand to charge the batteries as the car drives along. Solar and wind could be added as a source of power as well as the surface also generating power from the wheels rolling across the surface.

Then what about nuclear cars. I currently have a car sitting in the garage with a full fuel tank. If invented today the set-up would probably be illegal. So what about a safe steam car, the heat coming from an on-board reactor. Within the useful life of the car it would never need refuelling. Think like a watch on the wrist glowing in the dark. As safe as that watch would be the design brief.