Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Indian robot climbs trees to harvest coconuts

newatlas.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 180 posts

Re: Indian robot climbs trees to harvest coconuts

#141

Post by pvaldes »

hesarenu wrote: post #83
daggerdrone wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just out of curiosity, if there was shortage of coconut harvesters, why were they poor? Can't they demand more money for the task?

They do demand more. My parents house has 3 trees. The price per tree has increased. Its difficult to get people and if we get someone they usually agree to their price. This in city though not village. Its still a dangerous job. One of the guys who used to come to our house broke his ribs falling from tree.

Palm thorns are letal. I don't have any problem with macaques being trained to do such dangerous job instead having humans doing it. They are much more fit for the job and have the right tools. I couldn't care less about what Petaheads, trying to collect money with sad histories, think about that.

On the other hand, to say that caste system in India is an European thing, is the same as claiming that British introduced Hinduism in India. This is a very naive point of view IMAO.

Re: Indian robot climbs trees to harvest coconuts

#142

Post by searchableguy »

naruvimama wrote: post #132
brainless wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most Indians, me including and people I know of, do not understand the concepts of pricing that Western countries talk about. Even now, in 2020, this comes up frequently in product pricing when I talk to founders in India who haven't seen the Western notion of pricing first hand.

The west operates in over production and abundance, and perhaps the way the economics work in the west would be criminal in developing countries. Dumping food in landfills, milk in the fields or in the sea. Good groceries thrown into the garbage. It is optimised to maximise profits. Even though the overall efficiency from farm to table is very good.

^ https://foodprint.org/issues/the-problem-of-food-waste/

Re: Indian robot climbs trees to harvest coconuts

#143

Post by mkl »

gnicholas wrote: post #98
aaron695 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can just tether a power line to a drone so weight and batteries don't matter. And don't use a death saw. This is why you'd do a drone. It's a good learning experience directly to industry. A tree climbing robot is way more abstract. Which might be good depending on the degree. But you'll never work on tree climbing robots in real life. Neither will ever be used by farmers to pick coconuts, so it depends on what y…

Tethered power + laser cutting would solve the weight issue and the don't-drop-a-saw issue. Not sure how thick the branches are that need to be severed, though. But drone solutions seem much more efficient, especially given how long it takes to set up the robot featured here (15 mins per tree). This time would undoubtedly be reduced in production units, but variability in trunks will always complicate things. With a…

A drone-carried laser powerful enough to cut branches that thick seems like a pretty big ask, not to mention the accidents when the laser shoots past the branch! Dropping a drone that heavy would be dangerous whether or not it had a saw blade.

I think you could get the setup down to 30 seconds with parts that clip tightly together, e.g. how folding bikes work. The controls seem like a bigger problem, as automating that for the wide variety of natural trees, conditions, and lighting seems challenging. Having it crawl to the next tree and wrap itself around it to climb would be pretty neat too.

Re: Indian robot climbs trees to harvest coconuts

#144

Post by just4tscomment »

jelliclesfarm wrote: post #49
just4tscomment wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find that claim fairly dubious as well. The primary job killer currently is COVID-19, and it has hit India hard. There are numerous restrictions on labour and several farmhands \(migrant workers from other states\) have returned home. This news report, dated August elaborates: https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Madurai/future-looks-bl... Worth noting that the university in question is situated in the same provinc…

Point to note: migrant workers from other states are needed to work in the southern farms. The missing farm labour force are invisibly employed elsewhere. I would wager that it is in the tech sector.

I disagree. I took a look at Labour Report by the Government of India, https://labour.gov.in/sites/default/files/Report%20Vol%203%2..., which is based on the 2011 census data. A large portion of India's population is still poorly skilled. Besides, the tech sector has a higher barrier to entry compared to the blue collar and agricultural sector.

Re: Indian robot climbs trees to harvest coconuts

#145

Post by just4tscomment »

inglor_cz wrote: post #127
Bang2Bay wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I donot Think children of potus would suddenly become sewer cleaners either. is that determination by birth? Problem has been and is poverty. if british government treated india like england none of these problems would exist.

British government treated English (and much worse, Irish) working class like dirt too. Poverty in 19th century Britain was indescribable, even though people like Dickens tried their best to put the images into writing for future generations. Victorian Britain was extremely classist.

Oh, the British Raj treated the Indian poor and lower classes like untouchables, with a good dose of racism mixed in. I've seen images barring Indians from establishments; this report mentions "No dogs or Indians allowed" https://www.smh.com.au/world/no-dogs-or-indians-colonial-bri...

You still see casteism and classism in Indian today, although it may be more subtle.

Re: Indian robot climbs trees to harvest coconuts

#146

Post by eeretekeh »

eeretekeh wrote: post #124
dxbydt wrote: post #21

I grew up in a remote village in south India. We had over two dozen coconut trees in our yard. I made a long loop in the mud that went around all these trees. I'd pull water out of the well using a rope & pulley & pour it down the loop. The water would wind its way until it reached all the two dozen trees. About an hour of this water pulling & the loop would stay wet for a few hours. This sort of manual work was stan…

I am from a southern district of Tamil Nadu. Here, we follow a different method to cut the coconuts. The harvesters do not climb the tree. Instead, they tie together bamboo poles to form one long pole and tie a sickle to one end. The harvester then cuts the coconut bunch from the ground. It is much more efficient and faster than climbing the trees. When I was young, I was fascinated by their craft. They are so good,…

I would love to see someone come up with an ingenious solution for a similar job, but is much more dangerous, difficult and nuanced - climbing palm (palmyra) trees to get palmyra juice.

The tools they use are a loop made of fiber from palmyra leaf and a leather shield. The பனையேரி (literally means palmyra climber) wears the loop over their foot and the leather shield over their chest and they pull themselves up to the top of the tree. It's a brutally punishing and exhausting task.

(0) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0suSGmww9lQ

Re: Indian robot climbs trees to harvest coconuts

#147

Post by lotsofpulp »

411111111111111 wrote: post #111
faeyanpiraat wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a difference though? If I perceive a “perceived” value, who perceives the “actual” value? Spreadsheets?

Yes, take the original situation for example. The coconut harvester and the person employing him perceive the work to be of very low value. As such, the actually valuable work with high danger, which should've been paid appropriately is significantly underpaid. /edit: maybe its easier to relate in the context of the tech industry... while it has significantly less impact on the employees live its prevalent there as w…

> but surely everyone knows that people at the start of their career tend to be significantly underpaid). both the graduate and the employer just don't perceive their work to be as valuable.

If everyone knows this, then why isn’t there an employer taking advantage of this arbitrage opportunity to pay the new graduates more and use their “valuable” labor to generate valuable products for sale?

The answer is that no one knows the exact numerical value of the “value” of someone’s labor. Hence we rely on the buyers and sellers’ making offers to each other and coming to an agreement. As long as there are many buyers and many sellers, working independently, the market value should become evident.

Sometimes the buyer pays a little extra, sometimes the seller pays a little extra. It’s when there is no price transparency and insufficient number of buyers and sellers that the signal gets noisy.

Re: Indian robot climbs trees to harvest coconuts

#148

Post by syedkarim »

ponker wrote: post #42
thaumasiotes wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There recently was a huge controversy in Thailand about using monkey labor for coconut harvesting Well, I read the article. Why exactly is this supposed to be a problem? By all accounts, it's a good idea that works well.

Many people have more empathy for animals than for humans. The idea of a monkey forced/encouraged to climb a tree for a coconut tugs at their heartstrings the way a person does not.

Isn’t it selective empathy for animals. Just look at the popularity of animal food-products.

Re: Indian robot climbs trees to harvest coconuts

#150

Post by hutzlibu »

wraptile wrote: post #88
thaumasiotes wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There recently was a huge controversy in Thailand about using monkey labor for coconut harvesting Well, I read the article. Why exactly is this supposed to be a problem? By all accounts, it's a good idea that works well.

I don't think this is the right thread to discuss the ethics of animal labor but veganism argues that use of animal labor is unethical and that's where the contraversy originated.

As long as the standard meat comes from factories with horrific conditions, it is laughable to start with trained monkeys.
Post reply on HN