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Where are the robotic bricklayers?

constructionphysics.substack.com

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Re: Where are the robotic bricklayers?

#371

Post by concordDance »

mavhc wrote: post #44
spyckie2 wrote: post #31

The value of work is not in the work done; it's in the decisions being made. It's the ability to handle edge cases, to work your way through ambiguity, to "unstuck" a stuck situation, and to resolve tricky unforeseen issues. If you build a robot that only handles the main workflow and can't handle any of the exceptions, you're not automating anything; you're building a convenience tool. Basically, you're removing som…

Not destroying your body lifting heavy weights for 50 years seems like something people might like. We automated looking after the house after it's been built, no need for people scrubbing floors and clothes any more, freed up 40% of the workforce. My partially automated vacuum cleaner, clothes washer, dish washer, food cooker, water heater, all work well.

> freed up 40% of the workforce.

And did that actually improve everyone's quality of life? Or did it just increase the cost of positional goods (check out house prices in the West)?

Re: Where are the robotic bricklayers?

#372

Post by VBprogrammer »

brnt wrote: post #356
atoav wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but houses are rarely like a serial manufactured car. Sometimes you have to lay down every row of bricks differently with a ton of unplanned (or unplannable) things to account for, because the electrician might work while you lay your brick etc. Not that you cannot automate whole houses and sell them off the shelve for cheap (see prefabs), it just isn't something that could be done at a site where your brickbot…

> Yeah, but houses are rarely like a serial manufactured car. But aren't many of them? May be country specific, but in the one I currently reside there are tons of neighbourhoods that were built at once, 1000 homes+. In the US I've seen areas like that too. I can easily imagine a robot puts down the basics, and the individual tweaking is done later by hand.

For me this feels like robotics operating at the wrong layer of abstraction. It's like those old tomorrow's world programs where they show the robotic helper diligently sweeping the floor with a grass broom.

In car manufacturing robots are used to bolt and weld together stamped metal panels, this feels more like someone designing a robot which would be given a flat sheet of metal and using hammer and dollies forming the complete panel to be attached to the car.

In short, if we ever see a major change to automate housing construction I expect it will also come along with significant changes in construction methods.

Re: Where are the robotic bricklayers?

#373

Post by MagnumOpus »

turtlebits wrote: post #317
com2kid wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bricks can last a long time. Brick houses also hold their value well. No one cares about a brick facade. Also why do you say bricks aren't structural? I assumed those 100 year old brick houses used bricks for structural support.

Bricks are for decorative purposes nowadays (pretty siding). They aren't practical as you won't meet code for insulation. You will also need to frame another interior wall for vapor control. A single layer brick wall isn't structural.

> A single layer brick wall isn't structural

My 92-year old house with single layer brick walls says otherwise. (And yes, it insulates badly, but it kept standing through a lot of storms.)

Re: Where are the robotic bricklayers?

#374

Post by IanSanders »

spyckie2 wrote: post #31

The value of work is not in the work done; it's in the decisions being made. It's the ability to handle edge cases, to work your way through ambiguity, to "unstuck" a stuck situation, and to resolve tricky unforeseen issues. If you build a robot that only handles the main workflow and can't handle any of the exceptions, you're not automating anything; you're building a convenience tool. Basically, you're removing som…

That somehow hit home regarding software development (and technology in general). Brick laying is a metaphor for something else

Re: Where are the robotic bricklayers?

#375

Post by j7ake »

spyckie2 wrote: post #31

The value of work is not in the work done; it's in the decisions being made. It's the ability to handle edge cases, to work your way through ambiguity, to "unstuck" a stuck situation, and to resolve tricky unforeseen issues. If you build a robot that only handles the main workflow and can't handle any of the exceptions, you're not automating anything; you're building a convenience tool. Basically, you're removing som…

This is a well written point.

In our interactions with robots, I feel the future valuable work will come from work where humans have the agency and direction, while robot’s functions have been specifically tailored to augment the specific human’s skills or relieve the human of certain repetitive parts of the process.

Re: Where are the robotic bricklayers?

#376

Post by mavhc »

concordDance wrote: post #371
mavhc wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not destroying your body lifting heavy weights for 50 years seems like something people might like. We automated looking after the house after it's been built, no need for people scrubbing floors and clothes any more, freed up 40% of the workforce. My partially automated vacuum cleaner, clothes washer, dish washer, food cooker, water heater, all work well.

> freed up 40% of the workforce. And did that actually improve everyone's quality of life? Or did it just increase the cost of positional goods (check out house prices in the West)?

It improved the quality of life of people who didn't have to spend all day washing floors.

Isn't the point that house prices are high because they've not been automated? And also that people expect to buy a house using a massive loan over decades.

Although from the videos it looks like the brick walls don't actually hold anything up half the time, so might as well replace them with brick patterned wallpaper

Re: Where are the robotic bricklayers?

#377

Post by moss2 »

spyckie2 wrote: post #31

The value of work is not in the work done; it's in the decisions being made. It's the ability to handle edge cases, to work your way through ambiguity, to "unstuck" a stuck situation, and to resolve tricky unforeseen issues. If you build a robot that only handles the main workflow and can't handle any of the exceptions, you're not automating anything; you're building a convenience tool. Basically, you're removing som…

By that logic, power tools don't exist.

Re: Where are the robotic bricklayers?

#378

Post by [deleted] »

IkmoIkmo wrote: post #344
octokatt wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d add to the list of why partial automation isn’t worth it: it’s more satisfying to build a brick wall than babysit a bricklaying machine. Doing the physical labor is difficult. My father was a bricklayer from ten to fifty, when he finally had to stop working. But he loved showing me the buildings he built. He helped build city government buildings, schools, libraries. The pride he felt, that he’d built something w…

> We don’t need to solve just for the physical actions, but also for the human experience of building and the feeling of mastery. Particularly for physical trades. Why? At the end of the day there'll be two companies offering to build your wall. Human vs Tech-assisted Human (and eventually, robot). If one is faster, more accurate and cheaper, the buyer will choose it. The other will go out of business. It's not about…

[deleted]

Re: Where are the robotic bricklayers?

#380

Post by imtringued »

coldacid wrote: post #57
mavhc wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not destroying your body lifting heavy weights for 50 years seems like something people might like. We automated looking after the house after it's been built, no need for people scrubbing floors and clothes any more, freed up 40% of the workforce. My partially automated vacuum cleaner, clothes washer, dish washer, food cooker, water heater, all work well.

>Not destroying your body lifting heavy weights for 50 years seems like something people might like. And that's why the exoskeleton system mentioned in passing in the article is more popular with construction labourers than any of these robots.

It does sound like a mason that can lift 5 bricks at a time is more productive than a machine that can lay bricks 5 times faster in a synthetic benchmark.
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