Introducing Bob

Since our team of volunteers studies sea turtles on remote beaches as far 100 kilometers apart we have developed a system that simplifies data entry and communication. This season we will be rolling out our new software bot named “Bob” who will help the team out on the beach.

Sure, he has a silly name and icon, but Bob helps our team in many ways. When starting a survey looking for leatherbacks we check in with Bob and he lets us know the weather forecast, the tides and keeps track of where we work and makes note of our hours.  This software bot also keeps an eye the weather during the night and will send instant alerts if lightning is in forecast to allow everyone to seek shelter.

The best part about Bob is that he has a great memory and he knows everything about our turtles. If a turtle is encountered we simply ask him to lookup a tag and he happily gives us all the info about the turtle.

This season Bob is being upgraded to use a more natural language interface.  Now our team can ask Bob a question like; “is it gonna rain?” “can you lookup a tag?” “whose tag is this” and he will respond appropriately.

Here is an example of our interaction with Bob:

  • Hey @Bob can you lookup 982000149974963
  • Sure, that tag belongs to a turtle named AURI , and she was first tagged on 2014-05-17
    My records ? indicate that AURI should have no tag in the left rear flipper↙️️ , LLN352 in the right rear flipper ↘️️, and 982000149974963 (PIT) in her right front flipper. Remember though, I am a robot and sometimes prone to mistakes. Please make a note in your book if I am wrong and help me become ? smarter.
    These are the encounters that I am aware of
    2016-05-07
    2014-05-17

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