Man Constructs Suicide Bot

An elderly Australian man kills himself through a home-built, armed robot

By Gregory Mone Posted 03.24.2008 at 10:04 am 7 Comments

Suicide Booth The Futurama version of machine-assisted suicide 20th Century Fox

An 81-year-old man constructed a machine that allowed him to remotely fire a .22 semi-automatic pistol, then set it up in his driveway and killed himself. Reportedly, the man's relatives had been encouraging him to move out of his home and into a care facility.

Instead, he did some research on the Internet and built what was only described as a complex machine—the local paper that broke the story is keeping wraps on how it actually worked.

Technovelgy, a site that covers the intersection of science fiction and the real world, used the news to cite a number of interesting fictional takes on the suicide machine subject, notably the animated series' Futurama's comical suicide booth. But this real-world example is far from funny. The body was quickly discovered after construction workers next door heard the shots.

Previous Article: Science Confirms the Obvious: Allergies Make You Uncomfortable

Next Article: How Bat Sonar Could Improve Human Cameras

Want to learn more about breakthroughs in electronics, medicine, nanotech, and more?
Subscribe to Popular Science today, for less than $1 per issue!

7 Comments

Link to this comment

usernamelevi13

03/24/08 at 1:02 pm

actually, this is very funny.

Link to this comment

daq

03/24/08 at 4:41 pm

"the man's relatives had been encouraging him to move out of his home and into a care facility."

After that he conveniently constructs a suicide bot to kill himself.
Fishy to say the least...

Link to this comment

xentek

03/25/08 at 10:22 am

My thoughts exactly... How does an octogenarian build a suicide machine under the noses of their family?

It reminds me of that scene in the original Willy Wonka's when Gene Wilder tries to stop Mike TeeVee:
[unenthusiastically] "Stop. Don't. Come back."

Link to this comment

Crazy Stan

from Vancouver, Washington

03/25/08 at 3:53 pm

And why won't the newspaper explain how the machine worked? Do they think that by telling people they will kill themselves. If they wan'ted to kill themselves anyways they will do it using normal means. By telling them how the machine worked it might incline them to build their own but the end result is the same, a dead person. Heck, having them take the time to build the machine will give family members that much more time to get the person help.

Link to this comment

biga29

03/26/08 at 11:16 am

wheres a lab rat when you need one

Link to this comment

cloud2299

11/01/08 at 1:47 pm

suicide bots today. homicide bots tomorrow. like i been saying all along. i see the basic designs of terminators here. i wonder if he called it the T-1000?
what the @#$%? how did he build this "complex" robot under his family's nose (in the driveway no less) without anyone thinking...hmmm. i wonder what he's doing?
by the way, if the paper printed details of how the robot was built, they could be held liable if someone built one to kill themselves with. at least i'm sure there's a lawyer out there that could make them look liable enough to convince a judge or jury. after all, johnny cochran got o.j. off the hook for double murder.

Link to this comment

Zombie Steve

11/01/10 at 8:46 pm

I would have picked something with a little more oomph to it instead of the .22 pistol, the man's "lucky" he didn't just end up severely injured.