Robotic Goat Eats Losing Tickets, Becomes Popular With Kids and their Gambling Parents in Japan
by Kenny Luna, North Babylon, NY on 11. 7.07
When the owners of a boat-racing enterprise in Japan wanted to keep their best customers from throwing losing tickets on the floor they came up with a unique idea; a robotic goat that eats them right in front of your eyes!
Amazingly the people who seem to love the goat most are kids. And while I’m more than uncertain as to the general idea of bringing your kids to watch you gamble heavily, I am certain that the goat itself is helping kids see the wisdom of not littering, if nothing else.
It seems the animatronic Rocky Mountain goat eats 500 tickets a day on average, with kids being heard nagging their parents for losing tickets to feed into the machine.
Of course the owners of the boat-racing facility are capitalizing on the enjoyment kids and their parents are getting from watching the goat chew up losing tickets, and promoting it with catch phrases such as "Have your frustration eaten up so you can be lucky in the next race."
And while I think the idea could be adapted with a great degree of success to consume cans, bottles, and the like, I do wonder if in this case the kids and their parents would enjoy keeping litter off of the floor so much if they simply fed the goat their money instead of their losing tickets after each race.
See also:: Chibi-Robo!: Park Patrol, Nintendo's First Eco-Game for Kids , Abitibi Gets Schools, Churches Fundraising By Recycling Paper
So...what comes out the back end of the goat? Recycled paper?
this is a cute idea - it should be implemented all over the place. imagine. . . public parks with nary a trash can in sight, only farm animals being fed everything from soda cans to left over picnic foods. course, kids might not realize ole' Bessy on the farm can't eat that stuff. . .
maybe this shouldn't be used everywhere, but there are lots of places this would work and be cute.
anything that reduces litter is probably a good thing.
The energy used to animate the robot probably outweighs the negative environmental effects of a few tickets escaping a cleaner's broom, and negates any efficiency from recycling the paper.