from WIRED

Robot Design Delivers Packages Through Sewers

 

 

urban_moleIt’s 2020, and cities are so overcrowded that it’s impossible to deliver packages. UPS trucks have nowhere to double-park, and obnoxious bike messengers can’t even ride on pedestrian-jammed sidewalks. How, then, can important parcels reach their destinations in a squalid megalopolis of the future?

Through the sewers, of course.

The brainchild of designer Phillip Hermes, the Urban Mole is a capsule that travels through existing networks of underground pipes in order to  transport packages as diverse as groceries, signed documents and any title that appears on Oprah’s Book Club. The Mole frees up our streets and roads for important matters, like mobilizing armies against the cyborgs that will inevitably plague our future cities.

Able to move parcels as large as a shoebox, the Mole fully encapsulates its contents from surrounding waste water.

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