Everything is screwing up, especially biodiversity. For many years, water parks have been criticized for the living conditions in which marine animals live. While some parks have made efforts in this regard, this is not the case for all. Animal welfare often comes second, after public entertainment. Many animal protection associations wish to put an end to the exploitation of animals to entertain humans. But for the company specializing in special effects Edge Innovations, the ideal solution would not be to remove water parks, but rather to replace sea animals with robots.
The founder of Edge Innovations Walt Conti and Roger Holzberg, former creative director and vice-president of Walt Disney Imagineering, have developed dolphin animatronics to replace living beings and thus continue to inform the general public about marine animals . It is not the first time that a dolphin robot has seen the light of day. Twenty years ago, the first robotic dolphin was born, the Dolphin Robotic Unic. Unfortunately, at the time, the illusion was not working. Twenty years later, with the evolution of technologies, the result is surprising.
Truer than nature
The new dolphin robot is indeed breathtakingly realistic. Animatronics perfectly mimics the behavior of a dolphin in the water. He moves like him and can even perform one or the other acrobatics during aquatic shows, but also interact with trainers, visitors and swimmers. The illusion is made possible by an operator who controls the movements of the dolphin robot remotely.
Weighing 269 kg, the robotic sea animal has an autonomy of 10 hours which can vary depending on its use. According to its inventors, it could “survive” 10 years in salt water.
The first dolphin robot will soon live happy days in a Chinese aquarium. This animatronic is a boon for the country's water parks since the wildlife trade has been banned in China for some time. It remains to be seen whether the public will follow suit. In all cases, the illusion is likely to have an effect.
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- Disney
- Entertainment
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- Robot
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- Dolphin
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- Aquarium