Robot Reviews

Virtually all the underwater robots we've featured here were known to be designed to search for the unsearchable. Maybe they'd have to deploy one of those machines to find their distant cousin, Waldo, an autonomous underwater vehicle built to detect red tide.

The 6-foot long Waldo, of the Mote Marine Laboratory, went missing on Florida's Gulf Coast since last Monday. It was in its first few days of assignment for this year's algae-bloom season. 

Speculations surrounding its disappearance range from a serious seal leak or getting caught in a fishing net, to being overcrowded by remoras or suckerfish. Remoras, which grow up to 3 ft, have sucking disks in the place where a dorsal fin is normally found. They usually attach themselves to larger sea creatures like sharks, whales, or dugongs. 

If Waldo was indeed mistaken by suckerfish for a living sea animal, it wouldn't be the first time this happened. Another robot operating in the same area in the past was overwhelmed by too many attaching remoras, that it sank to the bottom for 24 hours.

A $500 reward is being offered to the person who finds the missing Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV).

Waldo was specifically engineered to look for red tide-producing phytoplankton, that it would be futile to find other uses of it. And since its parts were specially designed, it would be almost impossible to make money out of them as well. Hence, those who find it are urged to forget about earning more than the $500 reward.

The robot was purchased for $100,000.