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Western Australia’s Fastbrick robot building home in three days a ‘world-first’

perthnow.com.au

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Re: Western Australia’s Fastbrick robot building home in three days a ‘world-first’

#31

Post by nonce725 »

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #25
ahje wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, I think this may be a real time-saver for quick builds where you need an extra building like a garage or extra storage space. As others have pointed out there are some flaws in the wall in that article and it might not be optimal for housing, but for quick and dirty jobs it will most likely do fine. Construction as a service! :)

The timber frame itself and the exterior cladding for a traditional garage is extremely easy to build. Two relatively untrained guys with a stack of planks, a mitre saw and a nail gun can build that even quicker than this robot. The expensive and time consuming parts are the foundation work and the roof, which this doesn't address at all.

I spent some time project managing a company that did exterior cladding, and I'll avoid wood like the plague for the rest of my life.

Concrete has the huge advantage of not growing mould if you screw up building envelope.

At least, that's my justification for simply liking the aesthetics of masonry over wood construction.

Re: Western Australia’s Fastbrick robot building home in three days a ‘world-first’

#32

Post by mijamo »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #27
AstralStorm wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it would, but it will not solve the actual problem of availability and affordability. The construction company has little incentive to drop costs by much. As for prefabs, they are already widely used. What do you think those bricks are, or the big chunks of concrete used for roofs? Or perhaps the components used for balconies? If you mean to make even more complex patterns, the trouble becomes applicability. Not…

> Not everyone wants to live in the exactly identical house Sure, what about when it costs 5-20x less? At least in boat building you can either have: A. Boat designed and built by someone random in a shed. B. Boat mass produced by a company of hundreds of years of tradition and knowledge. With some rare exceptions, you'll always want the second option. The bugs have been worked out, everything is ergonomic and safe.…

Construction costs are pretty low, it's the land that is expensive. Ao if you reduce the construction cost by 70% it probably reduces the total cost by only 10/20%, and you get something generic instead of something made for you.

Re: Western Australia’s Fastbrick robot building home in three days a ‘world-first’

#33

Post by barrow-rider »

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #25
ahje wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, I think this may be a real time-saver for quick builds where you need an extra building like a garage or extra storage space. As others have pointed out there are some flaws in the wall in that article and it might not be optimal for housing, but for quick and dirty jobs it will most likely do fine. Construction as a service! :)

The timber frame itself and the exterior cladding for a traditional garage is extremely easy to build. Two relatively untrained guys with a stack of planks, a mitre saw and a nail gun can build that even quicker than this robot. The expensive and time consuming parts are the foundation work and the roof, which this doesn't address at all.

Also the utility work, no? Unless you're in a pre-planned subdivision or demolishing existing builds (brownfield stuff), water, phone, and power are often non-trivial.

Re: Western Australia’s Fastbrick robot building home in three days a ‘world-first’

#34

Post by airbreather »

airbreather wrote: post #29
AmVess wrote: post #15

Brick work and framing are two of the easiest and fastest steps in building a house. They are using an expensive system to do the cheapest steps. Essentially, they are answering a question no one asked. The expensive and time consuming parts are everything else; something this system does not address.

Cost of labor in Western Australia is unusually high, for a variety of factors including a series of tolling resources booms. Plus for some reason most people want a double brick home. This makes a lot of sense in those contexts.

Should have been "rolling resource booms"

Re: Western Australia’s Fastbrick robot building home in three days a ‘world-first’

#35

Post by mikekchar »

yetihehe wrote: post #13
mikekchar wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And, it doesn't seem to do anything other than place the bricks. That's not the hard part of "laying bricks"...

I think you didn't try yourself to place bricks. That part requires some stamina, after building one home I got a big jump in muscle mass (from super-wimpy to average male). Also your "hard" part is not that hard.

Edit: I misread your message, so you have obviously layed bricks before. I'm now super interested to know how you think it would be helpful to have the machine place the bricks on the wall. I just can't see it myself (yes, I know bricks are heavy, but I can't see how this significantly improves the situation because I don't think it will put the bricks where you want them).

I'm not sure if you've layed bricks before, so you might not be aware of how difficult it is to apply the cement. You have to put on just the right amount. There can't be any air bubbles. You have to level it perfectly (or it can actually cause structural problems). It's a very skilled job.

It's this why I can't quite figure out what this machine is actually useful for. In order to cement the brick, you have to pick it up anyway. You can't just slop on some cement, plop the brick on top, pour cement down the cracks and move on. You have to put the cement down on the lower brick, place the brick on the cement, seat it, measure the level, seat it again (maybe removing some cement), put cement on the side and the adjacent lower brick, slide the next brick into place, seat it in both direction, measure the level, adjust, ensure the gap is correct, adjust, etc, etc.

The machine just doesn't do what you need for laying bricks. It would be better just to pile them up at your feet. It's very cool, but the hard part really is cementing the bricks -- and it's even hard for humans to do correctly. If you are building something large like a house, you can have some pretty bad problems if you get it wrong.

Re: Western Australia’s Fastbrick robot building home in three days a ‘world-first’

#36

Post by yetihehe »

mikekchar wrote: post #35
yetihehe wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you didn't try yourself to place bricks. That part requires some stamina, after building one home I got a big jump in muscle mass (from super-wimpy to average male). Also your "hard" part is not that hard.

Edit: I misread your message, so you have obviously layed bricks before. I'm now super interested to know how you think it would be helpful to have the machine place the bricks on the wall. I just can't see it myself (yes, I know bricks are heavy, but I can't see how this significantly improves the situation because I don't think it will put the bricks where you want them). I'm not sure if you've layed bricks before,…

> I'm not sure if you've layed bricks before, so you might not be aware of how difficult it is to apply the cement.

Yep, I have layed some bricks, I know how difficult it is, I've also delivered bricks from stack to bricklayer and I much prefer laying them in destination place. Once you place about two-three rows in a house, it's rather easy (yeah, sometimes you need to reapply cement, but it's not that hard or at least wasn't for me).

> I can't see how this significantly improves the situation because I don't think it will put the bricks where you want them

For a machine, laying right amount of cement is easy especially if it was done by that machine from start. Also there are building systems like ytong (didn't use it yet), where you just place a little glue and just place your bricks. That would be even easier for a machine and I believe this is the system used here. If machine has enough rigitiy, it can lay bricks in exact place so all irregularities in previous layer are removed in next layer. If you have properly leveled surface where you start there is almost no reason to have perfectly placed every brick.

P.S. that building still stands after 10 years and walls don't crack so apparently I didn't bodge it and it was my first time (under supervision of course).

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