Navy robots normally deployed to disarm bombs have a jollier mission: entertaining kids at summrcamp

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.omaha.com/news/military/navy-robots-normally-deployed-to-disarm-bombs-have-a-jollier/article_7acda2c4-06b2-5513-9d1b-5cf959d8d33a.html




BRENDAN SULLIVAN/THE WORLD-HERALD
Children get a close-up look at the TALON robot as it picks up a backpack during a demonstration led by the U.S. Navy’s Explosive Ordnance Disposal Mobile Unit 11 at the Southwest YMCA in Omaha on Monday. The TALON robot is used to defuse bombs and search areas too dangerous for humans to enter.

POSTED: TUESDAY, JULY 15, 2014 1:00 AM
By Steve Liewer / World-Herald staff writer

The breadbox-size tank ambled down the grassy hill on its treads, and then back up again, a trail of happy children screaming behind it.

“Make it go as fast as it can go,” one youngster shouted to the robot’s controller, Petty Officer 3rd Class Nick Kisselman, a Navy explosive ordnance disposal technician.


BRENDAN SULLIVAN/THE WORLD-HERALD
James Virant, a member of the Navy’s EOD team, provides a boost to Ethan Zelasney, 7, in a race during a swimming lesson at the Southwest Y.


“Can you make it go down the hill again? Can you make it funny?”

Visits Monday to two Omaha YMCA summer camps marked a different kind of deployment for the operators of the TALON and several other EOD robots, all members of Navy Explosive Ordnance Disposal Mobile Unit 11 from Imperial Beach, California.

FULL story at link.

[el_bryanto]

1. I'm in favor of bomb disposing robots. And if they can amuse kids, so much the better. nt

[TlalocW]

2. Looks like a smaller version of Johnny Five, and we all know the heartbreak that brings

In the form of Steve Guttenberg movies.

TlalocW