TR Araña

The TR Araña (Spanish, meaning "route tracing spider") is a robot which is claimed to remotely analyse the composition of the ground. The device was created by Chilean inventor Manuel Salinas and was reported to be able to operate at depths of up to 50 metres. It is widely believed by the scientific community to be a fraud.

Principles

Answering a request by the Chilean Commission on Nuclear Energy, Salinas wrote the following paragraph:

"[The principle behind the robot is] The non linear integration of the basic unit of life conformation the way it is known; therefore and merely as a functional and explanatory concept, I detail that our device is the integration of highly sophisticated electronic components which are able to decipher the unanimity equation in the chaos theory in the context of an integral raised to the power of the radical exponent, based in the conformation of the species, the way they are known after 20,000 years of assisted evolution."

— Manuel Salinas[1]

At a presentation at the Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María in Valparaíso, Chile, on 12 October 2005, Salinas gave fantastic and seemingly irrational theories to explain how his machine worked. Before an audience of students, physicists and engineers he offered inconsistent explanations. But after some questions by students (questions answered with a mix of science fiction and ignorance), professor and Doctorate in Physics Patricio Häberle spoke to the audience, thanking them for their patience and respect, but saying that the presentation would stop there, the University would neither support nor give space for it, and that what the person (referring to Salinas) had talked about was not serious.[2]

Criticism

Salinas says that the robot bounces a nuclear signal off materials to search for specific atomic compositions. Consensus exists among scientists that the technology Salinas says is used on the robot works — but only to depths of 30 cm and anything beyond that, such as the dozens of meters he claims to be able to probe, would be considered a technological advance.

Salinas has refused to patent the machine, saying the technology is "an industrial secret."

gollark: https://www.petrockblock.com/2012/05/19/usb-keyboard-with-arduino-and-v-usb-library-an-example/
gollark: https://www.obdev.at/products/vusb/index.html
gollark: The actual USB ports on many of them just have a USB-serial chip.
gollark: There's some software USB thing I did mention.
gollark: Oh, an arduino? No idea.

References
  1. R. García and A. Ibarra (6 October 2005). "Robótica: "Arturito" no convence a los físicos". Diario El Mercurio (taken from El blog de Alexis Ibarra). Retrieved 29 September 2013.
  2. "Avergonzado por universitarios". El Mercurio de Valparaíso. 13 October 2005. Retrieved 29 September 2013.
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