Say hello to Colossus.

The recent fires in Paris of our beloved Notre Dame were a sad event. The cathedral was built in 1345 is considered as a feat of engineering and one of the finest examples of creative architecture. However, there are two sides to every story. The bright side is that no one was hurt fighting the fire thanks to Colossus.

Colossus was developed by a French robotics company, Shark Robotics in conjunction with the Paris Fire Brigade. Shark Robotics is based in France developed Colossus with a goal of keeping fire fighters safe and helping them move heavy equipment in dangerous areas.

The robot is piloted remotely and can carry heavy fire hoses up buildings and navigate to the core of fires keeping firefighters out of harms way. They offer three types of controls stations and can also be controlled via android or iOS system.

The spire in Notre Dame was in danger of collapsing and so Colossus was brought in. The robot led the way through the dangerous sections of the cathedral to clear initial fires and move debris, clearing a path for the firemen. Equipped with a tank like base with tank tracks, Colossus suite its name and looks like a very strong and tough robot capable of operating in extreme environments like a burning building. Picture this...

Big strong arms and doesn't mind fire.

The colossus also has a built-in high temperature thermometer to detect temperature of an area and also other smoke sensors to detect dangerous chemicals in the air.

The robot is can also be very helpful in transporting heavy equipment and injured  persons, collect data and report information on dangerous areas. Its equipped with an HD camera, thermal camera and optical equipment so teams can scout out situations and make reliable decisions.

Obviously fireproof, the red robot is built with aeronautical grade aluminum and steel and is 100% manufactured by Shark Robotics.  Colossus is easy to maintain and modular. The firefighters are able to integrate any kind of water cannon, upgraded with many options including a a long distance transmission kit (over 3 miles/5 km!), motored pull bar, a basket to transport equipment and smoke ventilators. The robot weight 550 kg and can travel up 45 degree inclines at a speed of 3.5 km/hr. Powered by 2 x 4000W electric motors had great  torque allowing it to be a strong pusher robot,

Colossus is a very tough and robust platform that has been tested in real world situations. The company designs, perform R&D and manufacturing in house and command a strict quality procedure in their workshops.

Here's a link to the Colossus specs.

Time for the side note section.

Meet a very gentle and "weak" robot built by the smart people at Berkeley, Blue.

 Blue should be folding our clothes.

Here's an intelligent and also tough robot:

CHIMP - CMU Highly Intelligent Mobile Platform

This robot literally looks like a chimpanzee and can twist and morph into different shapes. The builders call it a part tank, part ape and have won DARPA Robotics Challenge that pitted 24 of the worlds advance robot to respond to disasters.

Anyway, let the robots go where where no man can. After all they are dispensable and we are not.

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