Strange world: Robocop is for real

Published on Sunday 23 March 2008 21:27

FIRST, there was the 1987 movie RoboCop, directed by Paul Verhoeven, in which an android policeman brought law and order to a mythical US city.

But now we have the real thing – the Bum Bot 2000. This is a remote-controlled device on wheels invented by an Atlanta bar owner, Rufus Terrill, to protect his property. Terrill uses it to scare away the local drug pushers and street prostitutes who gather near his establishment.

The bar owner built his version of RoboCop after becoming dissatisfied with the ability of the police to keep the local area under control. The Bum Bot, which looks like a dustbin on wheels, is made of spare parts. It carries a PA system wired to a home-alarm speaker and has a rotating turret equipped with a primitive water cannon. An infrared camera and a two-million-candlepower spotlight are mounted on the turret. The water cannon squirts jets of cold water at 200lbs per square inch.

Using a joystick, Mr Terrill sends his robot up the to the local parking area where drug dealers hang out and warns them to disperse. The Bum Bot's video camera feeds into a big-screen TV back at his pub, giving patrons a chance to watch the robot vigilante in action. Usually, the drug dealers run away. "It scares the bejesus out of them," says Mr Terrill.