Indian robot climbs trees to harvest coconuts
I grew up in a remote village in south India. We had over two dozen coconut trees in our yard. I made a long loop in the mud that went around all these trees. I'd pull water out of the well using a rope & pulley & pour it down the loop. The water would wind its way until it reached all the two dozen trees. About an hour of this water pulling & the loop would stay wet for a few hours. This sort of manual work was standard fare for a young teen. Even then, in the 1970s, there was a shortage of coconut harvesters. The ones who showed up to harvest coconuts were quite poor, thin with ribs showing, and were well known through the village for this skill. It was quite a dangerous task - due to rains some of the trunks could be quite slippery. There were snakes in many of these trees! As a kid I wanted to learn, so they tied a rope around my waist to get me to clamber up the coconut tree. I wasn't able to - you get calluses on your palms & feet & it cuts through the skin as well. If you stick a tall ladder next to the tree, and climb to the topmost rung, you can tie an iron sickle to a rod & using the sickle, chop off the coconuts - but you have to stay clear of the falling coconuts! So a robot harvester of this sort is quite welcome. Its a pretty ingenious device.