431–440 of 564 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not quite. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plattenbau
The article mentions those. There's a reason they are not used much outside of parking garages.
Article dismisses them unjustly.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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 some of the labor part of the job, but still keeping the decision making part of the job for humans. Which is still automation. Robots in factories making cars still leave most of the "decision making part of the job for human…
Robots in factories can only do one job, building the same car over and over again.
It's still automation (which, as a concept, doesn't require being able to do multiple jobs, or even to do a single job from start to completion).
A mechanical system that frees a human from having to do do part of a job is already automation, and can still save tons of time and worker costs/effort. E.g. a system that automatically assembles 95% of a car door, and a human just has to come in at the end and attach some hard to automate part, is still better than the human having to assemble to whole door.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why not build the CNC router? It's a surprisingly simple machine, you could build one of any size yourself. There's even open source firmware and designs around. Bonus points for making it double as a laser etcher/cutter :D
>It's a surprisingly simple machine Yes, there is nothing dumber than a robot that doesn't know what it is doing. It is merely following a preprogrammed sequence of steps hoping nothing goes wrong.
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…
Perhaps wall construction / partition construction itself needs to be thought from the ground up, to enable automation. For example, is it possible to have LEGO like slot fitted bricks, with cavities in slots filled with mortar? Alternatively, toothed bricks that can be slotted, such that the top brick slots into two lower bricks.
But it would make the "hard" part of laying bricks (on wall connections which might not be right angle, when you only need 1/5th of a brick to reach the wall/window/door opening...) even harder. Basically, you'd move the mortar laying complexity into "where and how do we join the joints".
Basically, how many non-right angles did you make with regular Lego bricks? And how many types of Lego bricks did you need to get that nice figure built out? :)
The question I would have around automated building construction is "why use bricks?". Bricks are great for humans to build with, they are just the right size and weight for the human hand to manipulate and place. They are not optimised for machine manipulation. I would guess that if you wanted to automate construction you would start by making things like walls on an automated production line, then ship the largest…
https://www.ijser.org/researchpaper/Rapid-Affordable-Mass-Ho...
https://publications.iitm.ac.in/publication/mass-housing-usi...
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…
Where I live, there's often master bricker (who does all the skilled work) and dumb labour assistants who are doing dumb work like moving bricks, mix the cement and so on which does not require skill. Master gets all money and assistant gets some low payment (something like $1-$2/hour). I think that assistant work could easily be automated. But probably in my country low wages would make it economically unviable. But…
The dog for instance might be able to drag a load, but would probably need help refilling it.
Hey, I want to take a break from the normal HN flow to wish everybody a happy Tuesday. Take a moment to appreciate the people around you. It's easy for life to speed by. Anyway. I better quiet down. I'm sure the robotic bricklayers will be here to take our jobs soon enough. No need to rush it. (Well actually, laying bricks is one of those fiendishly complicated problems at scale...)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> This is why partial robotic systems don't really exist; either it's a nifty tool that speeds up a small repeatable process of your work, or it's building the entire house. I think I understand your overall point, but what you said isn't exactly true. Isn't "speed up a repeatable process" essentially a partial robotic system? Just look at a modern car manufacturing plant - it's essentially one big chain of robotics…
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…