Somehow This $10k Flame-Thrower Robot Dog Is Completely Legal in 48 States

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/04/you-can-now-buy-a-flame-throwing-robot-dog-for-under-10000/

by Brajeshwar • 2 years ago

42 96 2 years ago

arstechnica.com

jszymborski• 2 years ago

I wonder how suitable this is for wildfires if it relies on LIDAR. This is far from my area of expertise, though.

snapcaster• 2 years ago

You mean creating them?

kevingadd• 2 years ago

Controlled burns are used to fight fires

Ragnarork• 2 years ago

What concrete needs can there be for a flamethrower? That isn't going to backfire (hah) badly.

josefresco• 2 years ago

FTA: "The company lists possible applications of the new robot as "wildfire control and prevention," "agricultural management," "ecological conservation," "snow and ice removal," and "entertainment and SFX." But most of all, it sets things on fire in a variety of real-world scenarios."

ThrowawayTestr• 2 years ago

Clearing weeds and other grasses

IncreasePosts• 2 years ago

Farmers use flame throwers near me to burn their fields

sandworm10110• 2 years ago

Fire is tool. Sometimes you need to burn invasive species. Sometimes you need to start a small forest fire to prevent a bigger one (controlled burning). Sometimes you need to melt ice off a metal structure that you don't want to touch (HV electrical lines). This is just a safer way to deploy an already-used tool.

codedokode• 2 years ago

Are ordinary citizens allowed to "start a small forest fire"?

jimt1234• 2 years ago

Wildfire control. The biggest killer with wildfires, or any fire, is the smoke inhalation, and I guess this robot would be immune to that, which is pretty cool.

(I got caught in a small house fire as a child. All I remember is not being able to breathe or see anything. I had to basically feel my way out of the house.)

teeray2• 2 years ago

Literally fighting fire with fire

tekla• 2 years ago

To werf flammen

1515514• 2 years ago

What concrete needs can there be for a flamethrower?

I think that this would be obvious: "Gee, I'd sure like to set something on fire over there, but I'm way too far way to get the job done. If only I had something that would throw flame..."

kwhitefoot• 2 years ago

What are flame throwers for? Apart from the obvious people killing purpose.

sandworm10110• 2 years ago

In combat, flamethrowers were rarely used to kill. They are meant to terrify. Point a flamethrower at a bunker and those protected inside will surrender.

shitpostbot• 2 years ago

Did you literally just make that up and try to pass it off as an authoritative fact?

lupusreal• 2 years ago

Who the hell wants to deal with a surrendering bunker? You let rip with the flame thrower and fill that bunker with carbon monoxide.

In the wars and battles flamethrowers are famous for, Marines were doing shit like collecting skulls. Neither side was in a hostage taking mood.

OJFord• 2 years ago

Burning crop stubble (where that's legal) or heath control?

lgeorget2• 2 years ago

Testing the resistance to fire of stuff.

adamisom• 2 years ago

Since the dawn of man we've wondered: can I make fire? Can I set this on fire? And the modern conundrum: is this material flammable, or inflammable?

throwup2384• 2 years ago

Clearing forest or jungle for farmland and fallowing fields after the harvest.

hammock• 2 years ago

Melting frozen driveways (residential). Burning land (commercial)

sandworm10110• 2 years ago

> Melting frozen driveways

Please do not do this. Use a propane torch. A flamethrower literally throws burning fluids. It will melt the ice, then a ribbon of fire will flow down your driveway. It may then melt or even ignite your asphalt.

sandworm10110• 2 years ago

If you have ever used an actual flamethrower, you will appreciate this robot. Flamethrowers are hella dangerous for the people using/handling/loading them.

giancarlostoro• 2 years ago

You can also buy actual flame throwers I dont recall the price but it aint cheap.

fragmede3• 2 years ago

The one the boring company made was only $500, iirc. cheaper than many guns out there

throwup2384• 2 years ago

Specific restrictions exist in Maryland, where flamethrowers require a Federal Firearms License to own, and California, where the range of flamethrowers cannot exceed 10 feet.

As a Californian I knew I was going to be disappointed before I even opened the link.

I like the weather and the governance but we’re really not allowed to own anything fun. Can’t even own a ferret or a hedgehog.

lgeorget2• 2 years ago

Presumably 10 feet is already room for plenty of fun.

black_puppydog• 2 years ago

meh, about 3 meters.

s1artibartfast• 2 years ago

Maybe for children. I think the CA Regulators are out of touch with the typical flamethrower consumer and lack cognitive empathy.

hypeatei2• 2 years ago

It's funny because most of the firearm laws aren't even that enforceable. For example: magazine size limits. It isn't federally prohibited to ship large magazines into California, so unless a cop catches you with one then you can easily own a magazine larger than 10 rounds.

1515514• 2 years ago

Or just 3D print a completely functional standard-capacity magazine in a matter of hours and purchase a spring from McMaster-Carr.

tylerflick• 2 years ago

Almost any company selling magazines in the US is enforcing state laws as well. Reference: I used to work in this industry and encoded local legislation enforcements in our order processing software.

rchaud2• 2 years ago

Considering California's history with wildfires, having a law like this is essential. In 2020, a major wildfire was triggered by a pyrotechnics device for a baby gender reveal party.

https://apnews.com/article/wildfire-gender-reveal-california...

Communities should not be put at risk because some Americans want to cosplay as action movie heroes. What makes you think that flamethrowers of all things are going to be used responsibly?

throwup2384• 2 years ago

Communities should not be put at risk because some Americans want to cosplay as action movie heroes. What makes you think that flamethrowers of all things are going to be used responsibly?

What makes you think I want to cosplay as a hero? :-)

snapplebobapple• 2 years ago

you should slightly rethink/reword your argument because it is not right to say no riak for communities in a cost benefit analysis. The benefit maximizing outcome will hve some non zero risk to the community because the benefit from [insert some individual action] is non zero. Zero anything is almost always wrong.

babypuncher• 2 years ago

I think it's fair for a state prone to catastrophic wildfires to have some limits on flamethrowers

riversflow• 2 years ago

Can’t even own a ferret

I mean, there is good reason for this, ferrets are very hostile to the many ground nesting birds in California. Our state bird, the California quail, is exceedingly terrestrial, and that's before we even get started on the endangered shore birds, which are the real issue as I understand it.

neilv2• 2 years ago

Marketing materials for the standalone flamethrower product from the same company, https://throwflame.com/arc/ , includes a photo carousel of mounting it on various military rifles in civilian contexts.

Gun manufacturers somehow don't get sued into oblivion for how their products are used. I suspect that product teams found to be reckless in other categories don't have the same protections.

(Is a lawyer going to try to argue that the US Founding Fathers envisioned a well-regulated militia of robot dogs with flamethrowers on their backs?)

arcticbull• 2 years ago

Gun manufacturers somehow don't get sued into oblivion for how their products are used.

Well you can thank the gun manufacturer liability shield laws for that. Like the The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) of 2005.

1515514• 2 years ago

The alternative is special interest groups suing arms manufacturers out of existence as a backdoor means to deprive people of their Second Amendment rights.

One can still sue an arms manufacturer if a faulty product explodes in their face.. they just can't cry foul about what other people do with these lawful products.

1515514• 2 years ago

Gun manufacturers somehow don't get sued into oblivion for how their products are used.

Intentional liability shields have been legally enshrined for arms manufacturers (and for good reason.)

well-regulated militia

Can you please never repeat this line of reasoning again? This is well-settled jurisprudence, the most anti-2A SCOTUS Justices over the last 30 years unanimously agree individual arms ownership is a right (Caetano v Massachusetts), this fact is not in dispute: "well-regulated" means "in good working order," not "restricted."

Constitutionally-enshrined rights don't change because the English language happens to evolve in 200 years.

sandworm10110• 2 years ago

For many originalists "well-regulated" can mean "uniformed", as in the British "regulars" or regular army as opposed to local militia who were not provided uniforms. Remember that until very recently a soldier's given coat was normally worth more than his weapon. So much context has been lost to history.

Edit: I just did some googling. A decent British army redcoat costume still costs more today than a brand new AR-15.

bumby8• 2 years ago

I read their comment more along the lines of a statement that robut-dog flamethrowers wouldn't pass the "common use" test of Heller

neilv2• 2 years ago

I think what I wrote sounded much like an anti-gun argument, and many people are highly sensitized to that, so it wasn't a good choice on my part.

My intended point was that, although this brand seems to be marketing adjacent to civilian "tactical" firearms enthusiasm, and maybe emboldened by conventions in that product category, I suspect it doesn't have the same protections.

In hindsight, I should've asked that as a question.

ranger_danger• 2 years ago

Gun manufacturers somehow don't get sued into oblivion

Because they (along with the NRA and others) donate to the politicians, that's the only reason gun control is never legitimately on the table.

1515514• 2 years ago

Could this possibly be because these regulations might be generally unpopular amongst the majority of States and/or run afoul of Constitutional protections absent an amendment?

lm284692• 2 years ago

Gun manufacturers somehow don't get sued into oblivion for how their products are used.

If they were what about cars, knives, forks, pointy objects, plastic bags, bricks, hammers, machetes, &c.

bumby8• 2 years ago

It often comes down to what is considered "unreasonably dangerous"

beeboobaa3• 2 years ago

How hard would it be to swap that flame thrower for a machine gun?

MilStdJunkie• 2 years ago

Depends on what you mean by "machine gun"[1]. By the most common military definition, no. The recoil force would probably throw it to the ground, and even if it did not, the accuracy would be so laughable that it'd be more efficient to just load cyberdog with the same weight in high explosive fragmentation.

A SMG or autopistol . . maybe. Something like the Skorpion, firing .32 ACP, might be low recoil enough for aimed fire.

[1] There's a few categories here, and popular/legal categories differ from military ones. Legal "machine guns" include firearm capable of automatic fire, but this includes: 1) Autopistols and submachine guns (SMGs) fire pistol calibers, from .22LR (American 180) to .45 ACP (Thompson); 2) Assault Rifles, firing intermediate power cartridges like .223 and 7.62x39mm; 3) Battle Rifles are firing full power rifle cartridges - .308 Winchester and 7.62x54mm- from a box or drum magazine and can fire in full auto[a]; 4) General Purpose Machine Guns (GPMGs) capable of sustained belt-fed rapid fire with full-power rifle cartridges; 5) Here we're entering the realm of support weapons[b], firing Heavy Machine Gun rounds like .50 BMG, 12.7mm, 14mm, and other weapons like the Mark 19 automatic grenade launcher or the M134 Minigun (which fires .308 but a whole lot of them).

[1.a] Lots and LOTS of Internet Tough Guys will insist that the M14 or FAL on full auto is totally controllable by Real Men - i.e., it's only the sissification of our cucked armed forces that have brought on the curse of the Intermediate Cartridge. I'll leave judgement to the reader. Incidentally, the Venn Diagram of "Battle Rifle" and the older 1900s-1930s term "Light Machine Gun" is, functionally, a single large circle - it's just the advancement in materials and machining that make them any different. So why didn't LMGs take off back when men were Manly Men and could handle the POWER? Heh heh heh heh yeah. Physics wins again.

[1.b] Needless to say, a whole other category of internet moron insists that .50 BMG on autofire is controllable by a "man enough" infantryman operating singly. I'm sorry that this opinion exists, like, as a human being, but make your own judgement, as always.

1515514• 2 years ago

Aiming accurately on the move would be the hard part here (but this has been long-solved for fixed/emplaced weapons, at least.)

But any SMG or carbine could be installed quite easily.

ccozan• 2 years ago

Actually forget about the flamethrower, I want the robo-dog, is just 1600 USD! How come?!

fullspectrumdev• 2 years ago

It’s from China. The base model is 1,600 and is not terribly impressive in terms of payload carrying capacity (few kilos).

The higher end one from the same maker can carry 12kg of stuff.

barbariangrunge• 2 years ago

I thought it was the right to bear-armnaments, not the right to dog-armnaments

teeray2• 2 years ago

They are not considered firearms by federal agencies

Despite being literally armaments of fire

1515514• 2 years ago

"Firearm" has a very specific legal definition pertaining to explosive-powered projectile weapons.

bryanlarsen• 2 years ago

Unlike the Tesla "flamethrower" referenced in the article which is just a propane torch rather than a liquid flamethrower, this appears to be much more like the actual weapon of war?

1515514• 2 years ago

Yes, this actually uses liquid-state fuel which is substantially more sticky, spreads more, can actually "wet" things, and doesn't instantly burn up upon atomization like LP.

diakt• 2 years ago

People are reasonably confused as to why this is being viewed as a potential value add for firefighting. This is generally within my area of expertise as a former wildland guy and dev. I personally think this could be a game changer within reason in 8-12 years. There are two situations where this could be useful, either on an active fire or as part of a prophylactic approach.

On an active fire, traditional approaches on the ground involve figuring out where the fire is going, and squeezing it on the sides until it becomes manageable at the point. Backburns are sometimes used (under very specific conditions) to create areas of black (black meaning burned). Black is safe - removes flashy fuels at the front, and can corral the fire's ability to run. However, you do not want to be downwind of a fire, so backburns are used sparingly, and rarely in front of really dangerous fires. If you lay a backburn right with drip torches, you can actually encourage your fire to run backwards (back in backburn) into the active fire by burning the area closest to you, then burning closer and closer to the active fire, even against the wind. This robot could potentially allow us to set deeper backburns, so more effective counterfires. I am skeptical of my own argument because of price point (not sure how you can thermal shield to avoid sacrificing a bot, though to be fair, backburns don't generally get that hot immediately). That's the active side.

On the passive side, we have incredibly unhealthy forests on the west coast. We have changed our approaches but are toughing through the tail end of the consequences not allowing the natural cycle to cleanse ladder fuels from forests. We also live closer to the urban wildland interface nowadays. On the climate change side, we are getting more lightning strikes, which are the primary cause of western wildfires, and you can make an argument that wind patterns are changing. Bark beetles, surprisingly enough, are probably not causative (I will avoid this rabbithole but it's intuitively quite offputting), though they are spreading northward to novel biomes by the day. To get to the point, we have a ton of biomass that is dangerous to have in forests, and it's several orders of magnitude larger than our current work capacity within the USFS/BLM, even just waving off Alaska as a lost cause. Planned burns are increasingly socially accepted, and robots like these may offer an increased level of fire control, multiply work capacity, and minimize person risk. This is a much stickier argument (a lot of coordination, training, predicting demand increase for planned burns) but I'll wait to see.

I'd say bear case for using these things on fire is survivability, but also fuel load capacity, air possibly being a better resource vector (e.g. napalm bomblets), and departmental adoption, not to even address the standard swathe of hard problems (movement planning, battery capacity, dist syst for hell machines) that we all recognize here. I'm not optimistic, but I'm extremely curious to see how things go.

sheepscreek• 2 years ago

It was a little jarring to watch the promotional video. I am struggling to explain exactly how I feel, but I will try:

I think the more real impact of this will be an increase in the number wildfires, and the domino effect that causes - like gobbling up entire forests or burning up homes. I guess you can argue it's not any different compared to a flamethrower gun.

BUT..when you are remote controlling the thing that shoots fire, it could lead to a sense of dissociation or desensitization. It may feel like a game, than reality. I hope that makes sense.

generalizations2• 2 years ago

Note that good forestry involves setting controlled burns, which this could help with.

scoot• 2 years ago

This would provide the burn, but not the control.

generalizations2• 2 years ago

Oddly, I don't see any mention of what fuel this thing uses. Gasoline?

Edit, nevermind, it was a little buried: https://throwflame.com/products/napalm-mix-fuel-gelling-agen...

infotapeworm• 2 years ago

God, I love America

Somehow This $10k Flame-Thrower Robot Dog Is Completely Legal in 48 States

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