节目资讯
刊物:空中英语教室
日期:2012-06-27
难易度:High
关键字:irregular, segment, stabilize, prototype, oil skimmer, oil slick
Hi, everyone.
Thanks for joining us here at Studio Classroom Worldwide.
My name is Steve.
Last year Studio Classroom featured a machine called a drone.
If you remember, it flies through the air monitoring water systems.
Well, in our TECHNOLOGY feature this month, we introduce you to another kind of
drone; but this one doesn't fly.
Instead, it floats.
It's the Protei, an automated sailboat that cleans oil spills.
Now the Protei is exciting new technology because it promises a safer, greener,
more reliable way to clean up oil spills.
Let's see what makes it green at the top page 49.
(Music).
Protei: An Answer to Oil Spills.
Powered by nature.
Conventional oil skimmers burn oil or gas for fuel.
They drive through oil in irregular patterns, dragging a long tail that absorbs
the oil.
But Protei runs on wind power, which doesn't create pollution.
It drags a tail, but it collects oil by sailing in a more efficient pattern.
Wind pushes spilled oil along the water's surface.
Thus, the best way to collect oil is to gradually sail against the wind, moving
back and forth across the oil slick.
But when a wind-driven boat faces the wind, it loses control with no force
driving it forward.
(Music).
Hello, everyone.
Thank you for joining us.
My name is Ryan.
And my name is Kaylah.
And today we are back in our TECHNOLOGY article looking at Protei, a special
unmanned sailboat the cleans up oil.
That's right.
Now yesterday we saw that it is very safe and secure.
It's safer because people do not need to drive the boats that they usually use
to clean up oil anymore.
And it's secure because they can use it in harsh conditions that normally other
people would not be allowed to use it in.
That's right.
We use the word "stable" to describe that.
And that means it won't fall over.
So it is a stable boat.
Well, it's also, we said, safe for people that are not having to be on it; and
we talked about some of those dangers.
But how is it powered?
If there's no man onboard, what powers it?
OK. And that means what actually drives it, gives it its power.
And we see it is powered by nature.
That's right.
Now conventional oil skimmers burn oil or gas for fuel.
So Ryan, how does this differ?
Why is that special?
Well, typically, these boats are driven by people to collect oil.
And those are what are called "oil skimmers." And so they have a machine that
separates the oil from the water and collects it onto the boat.
And then uses that for fuel.
It burns it to drive the boat to give it power.
Mmhm. And we've talked already about the burning of oil also being a danger for
fire hazards for...
If you're on the ocean and you're surrounded by oil, if it catches fire, all is
going to catch fire.
So there are dangers in that as well.
Exactly.
So these oil skimmers are driven by people.
And these people drive through the oil in irregular patterns.
That's right. "Irregular" means not set.
It's not expected.
It's not what is usual.
So it's not just back and forth and back and forth.
Instead, it's... would look like it's not planned at all.
You could probably use the word "random" here.
You don't really know what is going to happen.
There's no real plan to it.
And as they go in this random irregular pattern, they are dragging a long tail
that absorbs the oil.
OK. So that is how these oil skimmers work.
They pull these tails and absorbs or collects the oil off the top of the water.
That's right.
And you can see an example of what that tail would look like on page 49 in your
Studio Classroom magazine.
All right. Now Protei is different.
It runs on wind power instead of oil.
And that doesn't create pollution.
That's great.
I didn't even think about how a skimmer... burning fuel or oil would also be a
pollution.
This is brilliant.
It saves the environment even how it works.
Exactly. Some people think: Well, oil skimmers, yeah, they burn the oil.
And that does cause pollution.
But at least it's cleaning up the oil spill.
Well, the oil skimmers do go in irregular patterns.
And they're still dragging a tail.
Well, Protei also has a tail.
We see it's very similar in that regard.
But it sails in a more efficient pattern.
So even though the random pattern works, this... this machine actually finds a
better way of sailing.
Right. It's more efficient.
It is better.
And it can do it faster.
And wind pushes spilled oil along the water's surface.
Thus, the best way to collect oil is to gradually sail against the wind, moving
back and forth across the oil slick.
Now "oil slick" refers to the layer of oil that sits just on top of the water.
And that's what they're collecting.
Now when a wind-driven boat faces the wind, though, it loses control with no
force driving it forward.
So this is a problem.
And we're going to learn the solution to it after we watch this video.
Protei may be the first sailing boat in history that can do this, inaugurating
an entirely new family in ocean robotics.
Now we want to build product cheap and make it very powerful and safe.
So we made a large inflatable version - Protei Number 3.
Because it's very light and it has a very small footprint in the water while
having a large sail surface, it has a great pulling power.
Protei 5 - We made a version packed with electronics and sensors on board that
would avoid collision, sense wind direction and power.
The next step is to build at full scale to test Protei in real conditions.
We are working together on the design and engineering of a green revolutionary
technology.
Work with us.
So far the Protei team has built and tested 5 prototypes, getting better each
time.
Protei is being developed as open hardware.
So anyone can use, modify, or distribute our technology for free.
Oil spills are happening all the time everywhere in the world.
In many places, people don't have the technology to address the spills yet.
We need a technology that people can adapt to their needs and resources.
Protei is being developed collaboratively to be inexpensive and easy to
manufacure from well-established efficient techniques.
If we have many Protei, a fleet of Protei could work automatically as a swarm,
or be remotely controlled by online gamers.
Beyond oil spills, Protei will be suitable for collecting plastic debris in the
ocean, and for many other ocean research applications.
We are confident that this open hardware technology will contribute to ocean
study and cleaning.
Please, help us build our next Protei prototypes.
Visit Portei.org to learnmore.