- This might look like a real dolphin, but it's a robot.
(upbeat music)
- Nobody believed it was a robot.
Everybody believed it was real.
- It's an impressive feat of engineering,
but it's a much bigger deal than that.
This robot could save the marine park industry
and free the 3000 dolphins, whales,
and porpoises that are basically locked up.
- You can sugar coat it.
You can paint their tank, but they're literally locked up.
- And that's the complicated problem
with zoos and marine parks.
On one hand, we lock up wild animals
for our own entertainment.
On the other, they provide the only venue
for everyone to see and interact with the natural world,
while also contributing millions
to conservation and rehabilitation efforts.
But what if this robot could keep
the upside and eliminate the downside.
- It's easy to kind of demonize
the marine park industry as a whole,
but we don't think that's the answer.
We just want to transition them
to the future in a much more sustainable way.
- All right, you guys ready?
(water splashing)
- Will this robot dolphin end animal captivity,
and be the future of marine parks?
(water splashing) She thinks so.
This is "Just Might Work,"
a show about surprising solutions to our biggest problems.
(dramatic orchestral music)
- So back here we have our archives
of all our aquatic animals we created.
This is the inside of one of the sharks
from "Deep Blue Sea."
Here are actually the swordfish from "The Perfect Storm,"
as well as the shark that comes on board
and grabs Mark Wahlberg.
So this is a snake from "Anaconda,"
the feature film "Anaconda" starring Jennifer Lopez.
- Meet Walt Conti.
- I'm the founder and CEO of Edge Innovations.
We started our life as a Hollywood special effects company,
building really sophisticated animatronics.
Back here, this is actually the original mole
from "Free Willy."
- Come on, Willy!
I know you can do it, boy!
- The kernel of our current initiative
really did start with "Free Willy."
- 20 years ago, Walt and Roger Holzberg
built the first free swimming animatronic.
No big deal.
- Our dolphin, we call him-- - Del.
- I have my dream job.
I'm a vice president, creative director
at Walt Disney Imagineering.
I pitched the idea of a next generation
attraction for waterparks.
I reached out to Walt and said,
do you think it would be possible
to take your motion picture animals,
create a new kind of Waldo control system and software
and use them as real time, animatronic figures.
- The mechanical challenge was hard enough,
but the key to making it all work was
to create something that felt real.
- You don't necessarily think about it,
but there's no blueprint for creating a dolphin.
So we studied tons and tons and tons of footage,
looking actually at motion profiles,
which ultimately relate to accelerations and torques.
Inside they're all machines,
they're all joints and servos and microprocessors and stuff,
but what makes a dolphin or an orca or a shark
or a beluga distinctive is actually the art
and knowledge that we bring to it.
- A lot of interesting things happened
when we piloted these attractions.
All of the fish in the entire aquarium
believed the dolphin was real.
The sharks avoided it.
The turtles were terrified of it.
The small fish schooled underneath it,
but the dolphins can echolocate.
So they certainly could tell there were servos and plastic
in this thing in the tank.
- Those early successes led them
to the most important question.
If the robot could fool the animals in the tank,
could it fool us?
- We're going to turn next tonight
to the sudden change of course for SeaWorld.
Bowing to pressure, they have announced
they are now ending their popular killer whale performances.
- In the US, the ethics of marine parks
have been debated for awhile.
Exposes like "Blackfish" elevated the issue
in the public consciousness.
There are only a handful of marine parks left in the US,
and attendance has steadily declined,
but that perception shift hasn't been the case everywhere.
(speaking in foreign language)
In China, businesses booming.
As of 2019, there are 80 marine parks
with 27 others being built.
And right now, a third of the world's captive dolphins,
whales and porpoises are in Chinese marine parks.
It's an unfortunate trend for the fate of these animals,
but it has created the perfect opportunity
for Edge Innovations to show there's a new way forward.
- About a year and a half ago out of the blue,
I get an email from a producer working
on a large oceanarium initiative in mainland China.
And they've just done the math on what it's going to take
to acquire pretty large number of large marine animals.
And somebody said, wait,
I wonder if you could do this animatronically?
- We currently are finalizing a contract
for a installation in a major Chinese coastal city.
Our vision is not just to like replace a real dolphin
with a robot dolphin.
We have seen dolphins and orcas doing acrobatics
in arenas for 50 years.
We want to create a whole new set of experiences
that this technology allows.
- There are some limitations to the current iteration.
It's attached to a wire for now
and is controlled mostly by an operator.
It's also expensive, but the numbers pay off over time.
While this dolphin costs between three and 5 million to make
it's far more economical in the long run.
- As it turns out,
the cost of entry of animatronic animals
is significantly more than buying their live counterparts.
But over a 10 year lifespan, it saves many,
many tens of millions of dollars
to only have to plug your animals in at night to recharge.
- What are you guys thinking about next?
- Well, we're thinking about version 3.0
of the dolphin where Del could just be in an aquarium
for eight to 10 hours on her own, swimming completely on AI.
- What may be the most powerful feature
of the robots is also impossible to measure.
- I want to know.
- And that's the opportunity
to actually interact with a wild animal.
- Experiential education with characters
that you create, like Del the dolphin,
is the deepest and most effective type of education.
Does anyone see a dolphin?
(children yelling)
Does anybody want to come in the water
and have a picture with Del?
With our animatronic creatures,
they've bonded in a way
that that kid is never gonna forget.
And our hope is that that love and that feeling
is gonna make her want to protect those animals
when she grows up.
- We actually want to expand ways for people
to fall in love with these animals,
which at the core is really what the mission is
and should be for all these marine parks.
- If we can build a robot dolphin like this,
then why not tigers that we can touch,
or sharks we can actually swim with?
Maybe even dinosaurs.
- We'd love to bring back the Jurassic seeds.
There is incredible marine life in the oceans,
hundreds of millions of years ago that disappeared.
We live on a fragile planet,
and we want to use that experience
of recreating the past oceans
to let people be entertained and enjoy,
but to point out the fact that nothing's given.
These things are fragile.
They're all interrelated,
and we got to take care of the oceans.
- Thanks for watching.
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and check out our story about the robot
that could clean up space.