the deepwater horizon oil spill in the gulf of mexico is said to have leaked 4.9 million barrels of crude oil. while the leak
is now capped, the clean-up is still occurring. researchers in MIT’s senseable city project developed seaswarm, in collaboration with walter nicolino - of carlorattiassociati and carlo ratti,
an autonomous network of solar-powered oil cleaning robots to handle situations just like this. the small floating devices,
skim the water’s surface, collecting oil on a conveyor belt made of a thin nanowire mesh. this patented nanomaterial can
absorb up to 20 times its weight in oil. the oil is then digested onboard the seaswarm so that the robot can be continually
collecting. the devices communicate with each other through GPS and wifi tackling an oil spill from the edge and working
inwards. their small size allows them to reach areas where other oil collectors cannot navigate.

http://senseable.mit.edu/seaswarm












photos by kris crag and andrea frank
images courtesy philsalesses, via physorg





installation view at venice architecture biennale
image © designboom

seaswarm is being previewed at the venice architecture biennale 2010 where you can see the prototype on display, in the exhibition
'italy 2050' inside the italian pavilion, curated by luca molinari and simona galateo, in partnership con wired.

the theme for this exhibit is nanotechnology in the year 2050. the sensible team interpreted this theme broadly and in
reaction to the current situation in the gulf wanted to envision how nanotechnology may become a pervasive too
in future disaster response systems. as part of the exhibit, the team has constructed an interactive installation where
viewers can clean a virtual ocean after an oil spill by moving their hands over the surface of the water.
this rapid clean up method is intended to simulate the simplicity and ease with which seaswarm will be able to clean
large oil spills.