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Ex-Googler's startup comes out of stealth with simple, clever robot design

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Re: Ex-Googler's startup comes out of stealth with simple, clever robot design

#101

Post by techie128 »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #80
nick0garvey wrote: post #30

The idea of it being controlled by a remote person makes me feel like a new breed of gig-jobs could be around the corner. Buy a robot, and pay someone remotely to do your housekeeping for you. The housekeeper could even operate it from their smartphones.

Why remote? There's plenty of people nearby you can hire that can do the job better, faster, and cheaper. The only downside is that you've got a real person in your house, but honestly if that's a hangup then you need to suck it up and just do the work yourself.

This is basically my exact argument that you attacked me for just a few comments above!

Re: Ex-Googler's startup comes out of stealth with simple, clever robot design

#102

Post by cosmodisk »

LarvaFX wrote: post #96
cosmodisk wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I saw some demo where a guy in Germany remotely operated a large excavator on the other side of the world. I think there will be more of these in the future.

Oh, the latency...

It would have challenges if it worked with people nearly,as then it can go south pretty quickly. However,the demo was some digging im mines,which isn't too bad if there are no peopl around.

Re: Ex-Googler's startup comes out of stealth with simple, clever robot design

#103

Post by typingmonkey »

russellbeattie wrote: post #69
nick0garvey wrote: post #30

The idea of it being controlled by a remote person makes me feel like a new breed of gig-jobs could be around the corner. Buy a robot, and pay someone remotely to do your housekeeping for you. The housekeeper could even operate it from their smartphones.

Actually, I imagine these robots connected to video game consoles so people with OCD from around the world can compete to see who can clean and organize real houses faster or more efficiently... Who needs a gig economy when you can gameify it!

Until 4chan comes and makes a challenge about who can remotely burn down a house faster. I think you need someone being personally responsible that the robot does not destroy stuff and people will not do this for free.

Re: Ex-Googler's startup comes out of stealth with simple, clever robot design

#104

Post by lopmotr »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #74
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People used to say the same things about dishwashers, vacuum cleaners, powered lawn mowers, etc. Heck, one could imagine Og the caveperson lamenting that their kids don’t know how to drag stones properly anymore given that new fangled wheel invention. Don’t worry, we will find other ways to discipline and train our kids as tech marches forward.

The important part is that people know how to do the things - and that the things have to be done - without the equipment. I grew up with a dishwasher, but when I moved out I was without for five years. I didn't end up panicking and just did the manual washing up for five years. I own a house now with a dishwasher; I don't NEED it, but it sure is convenient. Anyway, when it comes to kids picking up their shit, the im…

Anybody can learn how to do housework when and if they need it. Doing it as a child can instill a work ethic which is very useful, but there's no need to train them on how to do it.

Re: Ex-Googler's startup comes out of stealth with simple, clever robot design

#105

Post by sbierwagen »

janekm wrote: post #99
sbierwagen wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) Most expensive individual third-party components would be all the servos together, then the computer, then the realsense, then the lidar. All the custom body panels and custom cut carbon fiber extrusions are expensive now, cheap when scaled. 2) 5,000 - 50,000? Right now it's about twice as expensive per kilo as a Lamborghini Aventador, and they only made ~4,000 of those. It needs to be 18x cheaper to hit your pric…

The telescoping arm is cute, and provides benefits for reaching into constrained spaces like a washing machine, but in the first clones it would likely be replaced with the standard "cylindrical" (e.g. industrial robot style) arm. Hard to imagine that they could have gotten a patent on "robot arm on Segway". The elevator part though?

A conventional arm? Oh no thank you. Heavier, need a motor out on the elbow joint with another expensive low-backlash gearbox, mast has to be heavier to support the off-axis torque loads, grasp trajectories have another DOF or two. Skip that, please. And it's not like conventional arms are even cheap! If you could buy a decent 1.5 kilo payload arm for less than $5k, you'd have a whole different argument.

From the way the telescoping arm moves, I'd bet dollars to doughnuts it's driven by a flex-tape linear actuator. Pretty cheap, lets you put the heavy motor right next to the mast, no precision bearings, backlash not so much a problem.

The whole package really is a great design, I'm a big fan. You can tell Edsinger has been using robots out in the real world, with regular people beating them up.

Re: Ex-Googler's startup comes out of stealth with simple, clever robot design

#106

Post by gexla »

Kids' chores 2000: Take out the trash, 2 minutes.

Kid's chores 2020: Up until 3AM programming the robot to take out the trash. Purchased the robot two weeks ago. Kid only moves to go to sleep. Trash is building up. No other chores are getting done. Chores dashboard is flashing red. Take out trash sprint way overdue.

Re: Ex-Googler's startup comes out of stealth with simple, clever robot design

#107

Post by heikkilevanto »

Already now this looks like a very useful tool for a person who is bound to a wheelchair. It can easily reach things at different heights, including floor level, which is hard from a wheelchair. Its base is smaller than a wheelchair, so it can get into narrower spaces. Such person probably has an open, level, and uncluttered floor plan already, which works well for the robot. Accessories, such as the vacuum cleaner, can be installed by the operator (after the robot fetches them). Autonomy is great when it works, but even slow teleoperation is better than having to have a helper around 24/7.

Re: Ex-Googler's startup comes out of stealth with simple, clever robot design

#108

Post by thinkingemote »

onion2k wrote: post #28
spyckie2 wrote: post #26

Things it can't do: - go up stairs - get up after a fall / reset itself - pick up heavy objects - precise motion (so no cooking) - interact with buttons or touch screens (so laundry might be hard) The one use case I think it might be worth it is if the robot can take a room full of toys and return everything back to where it belongs. Kind of like a one click, reset this room. If it can help me keep organized and clea…

This is what a 10 year old would want a robot for.

If I was 10 and had a robot and my friend also had one, we would be setting tbem to fighting each other, or doing stunts, or doing silly things.

Re: Ex-Googler's startup comes out of stealth with simple, clever robot design

#109

Post by koliber »

bArray wrote: post #61
spyckie2 wrote: post #26

Things it can't do: - go up stairs - get up after a fall / reset itself - pick up heavy objects - precise motion (so no cooking) - interact with buttons or touch screens (so laundry might be hard) The one use case I think it might be worth it is if the robot can take a room full of toys and return everything back to where it belongs. Kind of like a one click, reset this room. If it can help me keep organized and clea…

Things it can't do (extended): - operate in your particular setting (it's likely over-trained for that specific environment) - run for long periods of time as a fully autonomous robot - be anywhere near small humans or animals - do any of the tasks in the video with any kind of speed or precision - learn new tasks - handle multiple objectives, or even process the request of a single objective reliably This is nowhere…

You're right about this expanded list of things it can't do. However, the conclusion is a bit on the negative side. The Roomba or any of the autonomous grass mowing robots can't do any of the things you mention either, and yet they are commercially successful in the consumer world. The article mentions that this robot is still a research platform, so as you say, it is not currently ready for consumers. However, there is a lot of potential here despite of the limitations.

Re: Ex-Googler's startup comes out of stealth with simple, clever robot design

#110

Post by thinkingemote »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #79
Traubenfuchs wrote: post #73

Alternative title: "Startup offers one armed, remote controlled 20.000$ robot on wheels with limited autonomous capabilities" What's the use case besides novelty purposes? Who is supposed to buy this? Solely quadriplegic people come to mind but even that is a stretch and it's far too expensive. This is lightyears away from being a useful consumer object like a vacuum robot. If this is peak robotics, it is very disapp…

Research; as the article states, it's a research platform. It's up to hackers and stuff to come up with ways to use this platform.

Hackers with a spare 20K?
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