Half a croissant, on a plate, with a sign in front of it saying '50c'
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Replace "light" with "sausages" and this may work...

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Ant Catching Robot

A stationary robot catchs ants on kitchen counter, one by one.
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Ants are invading my kitchen counter. Every time I wipe the counter top clean, a new squad of those tiny bugs show up and start scouting the white tiles in a minute. Spray doesn’t stop them and they love no bait. I just can’t stay there day and night to catch them all.

I need a little robot to do this job for me. As soon as the mounted video camera spots an ant on the counter, the robot sticks out a little vacuum tube and sucks it in a pouch. All I have to do is to clean the pouch once a while. I wonder if I can empty the nest with my little ant catcher. How do you think about this idea?

xuxun_wuhan, May 25 2004

Terro http://www.terro.com/
<blatant plug> This stuff has never failed to work for me and wipes out the entire colony [Klaatu, Oct 17 2004, last modified Oct 21 2004]

Ants Ants
[Voice, Dec 10 2008]

Tom & Jerry http://en.wikipedia...wiki/Barbecue_Brawl
Triumph of the mighty ants. [DrBob, Dec 16 2008]

Baked for wasps http://www.sentex.c...lt/wasp-sucker.html
Wasp sucking machine [spidermother, Dec 16 2008]

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       A fair enough idea, but I doubt you'll manage to catch them all.
Thod, May 25 2004
  

       sorry [xuxun] but you don't get a bun until you tell me where the ants are going to be disposed of to. I'm an ant fan and wouldn't want to see harm coming to them.

p.s. if you keep the place hyper-clean the ants will eventually bugger off.
neilp, May 25 2004
  

       It works but you don't need the vasaline. Any glass jar with a narrow top works and depending on what you put in the bottom it makes a lovely crunchy spread.   

       If you know where their access point is, spread some talcum powder in the area. Ants are extremely clean animals, and won't cross the talcum powder because it will cover them and they can't clean it off.
reap, May 25 2004
  

       Keep an anteater as a pet?
Zanzibar, May 25 2004
  

       Or a sign that says "Eintragung Verboten!" (except in Antongue, of course).
benjamin, May 26 2004
  

       Klaatu, are you saying you have fire ants, the kind that swarm up your leg and sting? didn't know they lived north of NC.
dentworth, May 26 2004
  

       This could be a self-stocking ant farm—with a one-way door. Let the ants walk in themselves by placing it in their path. But the real trick would be to get the queen.
ldischler, May 26 2004
  

       oohh I've got an idea. why don't I get a robot to do something I couldn't be arsed to do myself! bone.
etherman, May 26 2004
  

       technically possible? - yes
financially absurd? - even more so
deserving of my bun? - most definately
  

       can we get a version of the robot that hums/sings softly to the ants, luring them towards their end even quicker?   

       <slowly, in a robotic voice>
"the ants go marching one by one, hurah. hurah.
the ants go marching one by one, hurah. hurah.
the little one stoped to check out the room and got sucked up by the robot vacuum
and they all go marching down, to the ground, to escape, from my wrath..."
luecke, May 26 2004
  

       //oohh I've got an idea. why don't I get a robot to do something I couldn't be arsed to do myself! bone.   

       Isn't that what robots are for?
simonj, Dec 10 2008
  

       It needs to be really small, so it can go back to the nest and swipe the queen.
n81641, Dec 12 2008
  

       //oohh I've got an idea. why don't I get a robot to do something I couldn't be arsed to do myself! bone.//   

       And I quote Erwin Schrodinger: The machine must take over the toil for which man is too good, not man the work for which the machine is too expensive.
daseva, Dec 12 2008
  

       I like the idea of having my own ant minions. Why kill them off? You could send them out to steal groceries from your neighbours. You'd never have to go shopping again.

I wonder how long it would take to train them for this work? How big would my colony have to be in order to have a enough ants to steal household electrical goods? Hmmm! <strokes beard>
DrBob, Dec 16 2008
  


 

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