In a world full of trash...who ya gonna call? Ghostb-er, Space Taco Corgis!
Summoned from the deepest depths of space, the Space Taco Corgis were brought to Earth for a single reason: eliminate the excess of trash polluting the Earth's oceans, specifically the aggregation of trash known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
Entrusted with this critical, daunting task the Space Taco Corgis (read: the team) had no choice but to employ their most powerful weapon-- THE Space Taco Corgi herself (read: our robot)!
Called forth by ME218B at Stanford University, the Space Taco Corgi robot, known by its code name "Big Autonomous Recycling-Garbage Extractor", or BARGE for short , (humans, after all, aren't ready to accept the idea of technologically superior aliens) landed on Earth a short four weeks after being called. The task upon arrival was simple: autonomously navigate around the Pacific Ocean, collect Gunk and Refuse which is Randomly Bobbing and Getting Everywhere (GARBAGEs) (read: colored balls swirling in an air current), and deposit the collected GARBAGEs into landfills and recycling centers, as appropriate.
Despite the overarching concept's simplicity, there were several technical challenges the Space Taco Corgis had to overcome in order for the Space Taco Corgi robot herself to effectively clean up GARBAGEs. First, and due in large part to the distrustful nature of humans, the Space Taco Corgi had to compete against other, mere earthly, BARGEs . The BARGE which collected the most GARBAGEs was to be declared "Supreme Ocean Cleaner" (along with all the perks you would expect to come with such a title). Technically, this necessitated the addition of a sturdy, retro-reflective bumper and limit switches in order to detect a collision. At the same time this allowed the Space Taco Corgi to understand when she left the location of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (read: hit a side of the 8 'x 8' arena). This led also to the the requirement that the Space Taco Corgi differentiate herself based on initial zone of collection (whether North or South collector). This was signaled by a flag on the top of the robot (either U.S.A or Mexico-logically ). Another essential aspect of the mission that the Space Taco Corgi had to take into account was the act of actually navigating the Garbage Patch and collecting balls. In true Corgi style, the idea behind navigation was merely meandering the garbage patch (read: impacting walls and turning away). When it was time to dump (Corgis can only eat so much), the Space Taco Corgi perked up her ears (read: IR detector) and located the appropriate landfill or recycling center to dump her balls. The recycling centers and landfills were differentiated by a unique IR emitter frequency at each location. Due to security concerns at recycling centers (because some humans don't believe in recycling) it was required that the Space Taco Corgi pee on the recycling center to unlock it (read: emit an IR signal at a specific frequency). In order to pick up balls, the Space Taco Corgi was outfitted with a state of the art sandpaper conveyor (read: wannabe belt sander) to scoop up the balls. These balls were then funneled into the Corgi where they were sorted by type--recyclable or trash-- and put into the proper container for dispensing. Once the Corgi was full, she would navigate to the appropriate location to dispense the recyclables and trash.
After being outfitted to overcome these these small (read: large) technical challenges, the Space Taco Corgi was ready to put her fancy new soldered protoboards (wait, Corgis have protoboards??) to work taking out the trash (read: other teams) in the race to become "Supreme Ocean Cleaner". Check it out below (*woof!*)!