When it comes to worm gears, bevel gears, and gear pump manufacturers, you may be thinking, “So what? What’s the big deal?” In reality, these simple components and parts — seen in everyday objects like alarm clocks, trains, and motors — may be a very big deal in the years to come. In fact, gear manufacturing and custom made gears may help us accomplish a variety of remarkable things, from saving wildlife to fighting off deadly diseases, like Ebola.
How Can Gears And Robotics Save Endangered Penguins?
Simply put, more scientists are using gears to build rovers, which they send out into the field or into the wild to study animals, like seals and penguins, in their natural habitats. “The use of remotely operated rovers to study penguins and seals in their natural habitats is less invasive and stressful for the animals,” Discovery News explains. What starts as a gear, or just a circular piece of metal with teeth (or worm gears have a screw-like shape), ends up as a complex piece of robotic equipment — or a rover that is remote controlled, often with a camera and various other ways of recording its surroundings.
Gears Join The Fight Against Ebola
The government is also testing out prototypes of simple robots (once again, starting with gears and gear pump manufacturers) to help safely and remotely handle Ebola patients. These particular robots, however, may still need work. Experts point out that the robots, which may be ultimately used to disinfect areas, need a little help. All reports include the phrase “…after a hospital staff member cleans the room using traditional methods.” The robots would be most effective, of course, if they didn’t need humans to do some (or even most of) their work for them.
Scientists are effectively using gears and robotics to craft rovers that give us new, unique insights into wildlife populations. Some projects with gears and robots, such as the Ebola-fighting robot, still need a little bit of work to be truly helpful.