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Show HN: OK-Robot: open, modular home robot framework for pick-and-drop anywhere

ok-robot.github.io

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Re: Show HN: OK-Robot: open, modular home robot framework for pick-and-drop anywhere

#91

Post by sandworm101 »

developerDan wrote: post #56
sandworm101 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> improving things for people with disabilities improves things for everyone Everything has its limits. Many years ago I was involved in building a series of staircases in a rock climbing area inside a park. There were about a hundred steps in a handful of orientations to get from the parking lot over a rocky hill to the small valleys behind. The project was primarily to prevent trail erosion and falls. These steps…

It’s so frustrating that city leaders can’t even try to use common sense. Where I live a parking requirement blocked a restaurant from being built and our city council publicly acknowledged that there isn’t enough space for parking and a building, but “that’s the law” so they blocked it. Lazy idiots.

Or maybe the city doesn't want businesses that are going to bring people into an area without giving them space to park the cars they inevitably bring with them.

Re: Show HN: OK-Robot: open, modular home robot framework for pick-and-drop anywhere

#94

Post by fnordpiglet »

ctoth wrote: post #76

For solving long term tasks like finding things that aren't there, you can turn the annotated scene into a templated description and feed it to a large-enough model trained on interactive fiction. You are standing in a kitchen. Ahead of you to your right there is a large refrigerator with the handle on the right side. There is a set of cabinets to your left with a plate sitting on the counter above them. > get beer Y…

Multi modal LLM already excel at theses sorts of tasks. Try taking a picture of your kitchen and ask chatgpt where to find the beer.

I use this quite a lot actually. Being lazy I take photographs of components and boards and ask it how to wire them to my esp32. It’s able to distinguish the board, chip, etc, as well as the pinouts from a set of photos and tell me what wires to where and anything of note. It’ll often even suggest helpful libraries for the parts. It’s essentially magic.

Re: Show HN: OK-Robot: open, modular home robot framework for pick-and-drop anywhere

#95

Post by rapjr9 »

Robots like this will have a small market until they can handle obstacles. The cat toy that the cat left in the middle of the floor, the papers that an open window blew off the table, the toys the kids left scattered about, the pencil that rolled off the desk while you were away, the dirty laundry you left laying on the floor, the ridge between carpet and hardwood floors, doors left open or closed, and more. That means there may be several tasks that intervene before a primary task can accomplished (move the toys, pick up the papers, pick up the laundry, open the door). Some obstacles will semi-permanently block a wheeled robot, such as cables, things stacked that you don't want moved, furniture, a sleeping pet, stacked unopened packages from the mail, etc. I believe this means general purpose home robots can not have wheels, they must have legs, perhaps more than two legs for stability. It may sound weird but I think the ideal design might be somewhere between a large friendly spider and a dog. It's odd how robotics has mostly fallen into this idea that the world is two dimensional and flat. They've idealized away the really difficult problems of dealing with mobility in a 3D world. Note that everything this robot does involves only planar horizontal surfaces. Basically it looks like a person had to go through the rooms and clean them up for the robot to function. Roomba's have the same problem.

Re: Show HN: OK-Robot: open, modular home robot framework for pick-and-drop anywhere

#96

Post by leptons »

MahiShafiullah wrote: post #64
leptons wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>A lot of those movements are there to zero out the axes so that each movement starts from a known good position and orients itself against the camera. Usually there's a switch that, for example, senses when the body goes all the way to the bottom, which is the origin for the whole positioning system. Ideally the "zeroing" should be done once when the robot "wakes up" or only once in a while, and there should be digi…

It's always a trade-off! You could have more accurate sensors and motors that are more expensive, or you can have cheaper motors with no sensors and higher accumulated errors. Since this is more of a research project than a product, we went for a cheap robot with the slower-but-more-accurate approach.

Encoders are not that expensive and they don't have to be integrated into the motor. I've done this stuff before, it's not so costly and it really improves the entire system.

Re: Show HN: OK-Robot: open, modular home robot framework for pick-and-drop anywhere

#97

Post by iancmceachern »

rapjr9 wrote: post #95

Robots like this will have a small market until they can handle obstacles. The cat toy that the cat left in the middle of the floor, the papers that an open window blew off the table, the toys the kids left scattered about, the pencil that rolled off the desk while you were away, the dirty laundry you left laying on the floor, the ridge between carpet and hardwood floors, doors left open or closed, and more. That mea…

This same problem exists in the hospital setting on anything with wheels.

They solve it there with "cord pushers". Basically cattle guards for stuff on the floor.

Not every problem needs a complex solution.

I think the brilliance of this project is in its simplicity, particularly in the robot design.

Re: Show HN: OK-Robot: open, modular home robot framework for pick-and-drop anywhere

#98

Post by rapjr9 »

iancmceachern wrote: post #97
rapjr9 wrote: post #95

Robots like this will have a small market until they can handle obstacles. The cat toy that the cat left in the middle of the floor, the papers that an open window blew off the table, the toys the kids left scattered about, the pencil that rolled off the desk while you were away, the dirty laundry you left laying on the floor, the ridge between carpet and hardwood floors, doors left open or closed, and more. That mea…

This same problem exists in the hospital setting on anything with wheels. They solve it there with "cord pushers". Basically cattle guards for stuff on the floor. Not every problem needs a complex solution. I think the brilliance of this project is in its simplicity, particularly in the robot design.

Take a look at these pictures:

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=cluttered+old+persons+home&atb=v31...

I was thinking that people who live in an environment like this are most in need of a robot to help them.

Re: Show HN: OK-Robot: open, modular home robot framework for pick-and-drop anywhere

#99

Post by [deleted] »

Iv wrote: post #65
marci wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I forgot where I saw that, but generally, improving things for people with disabilities improves things for everyone, like making sidewalks wheelchair friendly helps parents with a stroller, or people carrying heavy stuff, walking with a cane, young children on bicycles, people who can't see well...

... daleks

[deleted]

Re: Show HN: OK-Robot: open, modular home robot framework for pick-and-drop anywhere

#100

Post by floydnoel »

iancmceachern wrote: post #97
rapjr9 wrote: post #95

Robots like this will have a small market until they can handle obstacles. The cat toy that the cat left in the middle of the floor, the papers that an open window blew off the table, the toys the kids left scattered about, the pencil that rolled off the desk while you were away, the dirty laundry you left laying on the floor, the ridge between carpet and hardwood floors, doors left open or closed, and more. That mea…

This same problem exists in the hospital setting on anything with wheels. They solve it there with "cord pushers". Basically cattle guards for stuff on the floor. Not every problem needs a complex solution. I think the brilliance of this project is in its simplicity, particularly in the robot design.

these "invented problems" that software engineers (such as myself) find in every project are basically why we can't have nice things. why did software in the 90s run faster than the same functionality in the 2020's? it's this right here.
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